About London

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ABOUT LONDON,

BY

J, EWIffG EITCHIE,

Author of " Night Side of London ;" " The London Pulpit
" Here and There in London," &e.

" The boiling town keeps secrets ill." — AURORA LEIGH.

LONDON:

WILLIAM TINSLEY, 314, STEAND.
1860.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE author of the following pages, must plead as his
apology for again trespassing on the good nature of the
public, the success of his other books. He is aware that,
owing to unavoidable circumstances, the volume here
and there bears marks of haste, but he trusts that on
the whole it may be considered reliable, and not
altogether unworthy of the public favour.

FnrcELBT,

June 16M, 1800.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I, PAGE.

NEWSPAPER PEOPLE - 1

CHAPTER IT.
SPIRITUALISM .... 12

CHAPTER III.
ABOUT COAL 23

CHAPTER IV.

HlGHGATE 44

CHAPTER V.
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 60

CHAPTER VI.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY .... «s

CHAPTER Vn.
LONDON CHARITIES 76

CHAPTER VIII.
PEDESTRIANISM 84

CHAPTER IX.
OVER LONDON BRIDGE 93

CHAPTER X.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE EARLY-CLOSING

MOVEMENT ...... . 101

CHAPTER XI.
TOWN MOBALS HO

yi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.

TlIE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED ..... 12]

CHAPTER XII.
LONDON MATRIMONIAL ....... 131

CHAPTER XIII.
BREACH OF PROMISE CASES .

CHAPTER XIV.
COMMERCIAL LONDON ....... 149

CHAPTER XV.
LONDON GENTS ........ 158

CHAPTER XVI.
THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS ...... 165

CHAPTER XVII.

CRIMINAL LONDON

CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING CABS

CHAPTER XIX.
"FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS - 19:'

CEAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION - - - ...... 203.

TOWN TALK,

CHAPTER I.
NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

WHAT would the Englishman do without his newspaper
I cannot imagine. The sun might just as well refuse to
shine, as the press refuse to turn out its myriads of
newspapers. Conversation would cease at once. Brown,
with his morning paper in his hand, has very decided
opinions indeed, — can tell you what the French Emperor
is about, — what the Pope will be compelled to do, —
what is the aim of Sardinia, — and what is Austria's
little game. I dined at Jenkins's yesterday, and for
three hours over the wine I was compelled to listen to
what I had read in that morning's Times. The worst of
it was, that when I joined the ladies I was no better
off, as the dear creatures were full of the particulars of
the grand Rifle Ball. "When I travel by the rail, I am
gratified with details of divorce cases — of terrible acci-
dents— of dreadful shipwrecks — of atrocious murders —

2 NEWSPAPEK PEOPLE.

of ingenious swindling, all brought to light by means of
the press. What people could have found to talk about
before the invention of newspapers, is beyond my limited
comprehension. They must have been a dull set in those
dark days; I suppose the farmers and country gentlemen
talked of bullocks, and tradespeople about trade; the
ladies about fashions, and cookery, and the plague of bad
servants. We are wonderfully smarter now, and shine,
though it be with a borrowed light.

A daily newspaper is, to a man of my way of thinking,
one of the most wonderful phenomena of these latter
days. It is a crown of glory to our land. It is true, in
some quarters, a contrary opinion is held. " The press,"
Mr. David Urquhart very seriously tells us, " is an
invention for the development of original sin." In the
opinion of that amiable cynic, the late Mr. Henry Drum-
mond, a newspaper is but a medium for the circulation
of gossip ; but, in spite of individuals, the general fact
remains that the press is not merely a wonderful orga-
nization, but an enormous power in any land — in ours
most of all, where public opinion rules more or less
directly. Our army in the Crimea was saved by the Times.
When the Times turned, free-trade was carried. The
Times not long since made a panic, and securities became
in some cases utterly unsaleable, and some seventy stock-
brokers were ruined. The Times says we don't want a
R/eform Bill, and Lord John can scarce drag his measure
through the Commons. But it is not of the power, but
of the organization of the press I would speak. Accord-

NEWSPAPER PEOPLE. 3

ing to geologists, ages passed away before this earth of
ours became fit for Iranian habitation ; volcanic agencies
were previously to be in action — plants and animals,
that exist not now, were to be born, and live, and die —
tropical climates were to become temperate, and oceans,
solid land. In a similar way, the newspaper is the result
of agencies and antecedents almost equally wondrous and
remote. For ages have science, and nature, and man
been preparing its way. Society had to become intel-
lectual— letters had to be invented — types had to be
formed — paper had to be substituted for papyrus — the
printing-press had to become wedded to steam — the
electric-telegraph had to be discovered, and the problem
of liberty had to be solved, in a manner more or less
satisfactory, before a newspaper, as we understand the
word, could be; and that we, have the fruit of all this
laid on our breakfast-table every morning, for at the
most five-pence, and at the least one-penny, is wonderful
indeed. But, instead of dwelling on manifest truisms,
let us think awhile of a newspaper-office, and those who
do business there. Externally, there is nothing remark-
able in a newspaper-office. You pass by at night, and
see many windows lighted with gas, that is all. By
davli^ht there is nothing to attract curiositv, indeed, in

t- O O * * *

the early part of the day, there is little going on at a
newspaper-office. When you and I are hard at work,
newspaper people are enjoying their night ; when you
and I are asleep, they are hard at work for us. They
have a hot-house appearance, and are rarely octogenarians.

B 2

4 NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

The conscientious editor of a daily newspaper can never
be free from anxiety. He lias enough to do to keep all
to their post ; he must see that the leader-writers are all
up to the mark — that the reporters do their duty — that
the literary critic, and the theatrical critic, and the
musical critic, and the city correspondent, and the special
reporter, and the host of nameless contributors, do not
disappoint or deceive the public, and that every day the
daily sheet shall have something in it to excite, or inform,
or improve. But while you and I are standing outside,
the editor, in some remote suburb, is, it may be, dream-
ing of pleasanter things than politics and papers. One
man, however, is on the premises, and that is the mana-
ger. He represents the proprietors, and is, in his sphere,
as great a man as the editor. It is well to be deferential
to the manager. He is a wonder in his way, — literary
man, yet man of business. He must know everybody,
be able at a moment's notice to pick the right man out,
and send him, it may be, to the Antipodes. Of all events
that are to come off in the course of the year, unexpected
or the reverse, he must have a clear and distinct percep-
tion, that he may have eye-witnesses there for the benefit
of the British public. He, too, must contrive, so that
out-goings shall not exceed receipts, and that the paper
pays. He must be active, wide-awake, possessed of
considerable tact, and if, when an Irish gentleman, with
a big stick, calls and asks to see the editor or manager,
he knows how to knock a man down, so much the better.
Of course, managers are not required for the smaller

NEWSPAPER PEOPLE. 5

weeklies. In some of the offices there is very little
subdivision of labour. The editor writes the leaders and
reviews, and the sub-editor does the paste-and-scissors
work. But let us return to the daily paper ; — outside
of the office of which we have been so rude as to leave
the reader standing all this while.

At present there is no sign of life. It is true, already
the postman has delivered innumerable letters from all
quarters of the globe — that the electric telegraph has
sent its messages — that the railways have brought their
despatches — that the publishers have furnished books of
all sorts and sizes for review — and that tickets from all
the London exhibitions are soliciting a friendly notice.
There let them lie unheeded, till the coming man appears.
Even the publisher, who was here at five o'clock in the
morning, has gone home : only a few clerks, connected
with the financial department of the paper, or to receive
advertisements, are on the spot. We may suppose that
somewhere between one and two the first editorial visit
will be paid, and that then this chaos is reduced to
order ; and that the ideas, which are to be represented
in the paper of to-morrow, are discussed, and the
daily organs received, and gossip of all sorts from the
clubs — from the house — from the city — collected and
condensed ; a little later perhaps assistants arrive — one
to culr all the sweets from the provincial journals —
another to look over the files of foreign papers — another
it may be to translate important documents. The great
machine is now getting steadily at work. Up in the

6 NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

composing-room are printers already fingering their
types.

In the law-courts, a briefless barrister is taking notes
— in the police-courts, reporters are at work, and far
away in the city, ' ' our city correspondent " is collecting
the commercial news of the hour — and in all parts of
London penny-a-liners, like eagles scenting carrion, are
ferreting out for the particulars of the last " extraor-
dinary elopement," or " romantic suicide." The later
it grows the more gigantic becomes the pressure. The
parliamentary reporters are now furnishing their quota ;
gentlemen who have been assisting at public-dinners
come redolent of post-prandial eloquence, which has to
be reduced to sense and grammar. It is now midnight,
and yet we have to wait the arrival of the close of
the parliamentary debate, on which the editor must
write a leader before he leaves ; and the theatrical critic's
verdict on the new play. In the meanwhile the foreman
of the printers takes stock, being perfectly aware that
he cannot perform the wonderful feat of making a pint
bottle hold a quart. Woe is me ! he has already half
a dozen columns in excess. What is to be doiii ?
Well, the literature must stand over, that's very cbar,
then those translations from the French will do to-
morrow, and this report will also not hurt by delay —
as to the rest, that must be cut down and sail further
condensed ; but quickly, for time is passing1, and we must
be on the machine at three. Quickly fly the minutes
— hotter becomes the gas-lit room — wearier the edito-

NEWSPAPER PEOPLE. 7

rial staff. But the hours bring relief. The principal
editor has done his leader and departed — the assistants
have done the same — so have the reporters, only the
sub-editor remains, and as daylight is glimmering in the
east, and even fast London is asleep, he quietly lights a
cigar, and likewise departs ; the printers will follow as
soon as the forms have gone down, and the movements
below indicate that the machine, by -the aid of steam, is
printing.

We have thus seen most of the newspaper people
off the premises. As we go out into the open air, we
may yet find a few of them scorning an ignoble repose.
For instance, there is a penny-a-liner — literally he is not
a penny-a-liner, as he is generally paid three-farthings
a line, and very good pay that is, as the same account,
written on very thin paper, called flimsy, is left at all
the newspaper-offices, which, if they all insert, they all
pay for, and one short tale may put the penny-a-liner
in funds for a week. The penny-a-liner has long been
the butt of a heartless world. He ought to be a cynic,
and I fear is but an indifferent Christian, and very so-
so as head of a family. His appearance is somewhat
against him, and his antecedents are eccentric ; his face
has a beery appearance ; his clothes are worn in defiance
of fashion ; neither his hat nor his boots would be con-
sidered by a swell as the correct stilton; you would
scarce take him as the representative of the potent
fourth estate. Yet penny-a-liner's rise; one of them
is now the editor of a morning paper ; another is the

8 NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

manager of a commercial establishment, with a salary of
almost a thousand a year ; but chiefly, I imagine, they
are jolly good fellows going down the hill. Charles
Lamb said he never greatly cared for the society of what
are called good people. The penny-a-liners have a
similar weakness ; they are true Bohemians, and are
prone to hear the chimes at midnight. Literally, they
take no thought for to-morrow, and occasionally are
put to hard shifts. Hence it is sub-editors have to be
on their guard with their dealings with them. Their
powers of imagination and description are great. They
are prone to harrow up your souls -with horrors that
never existed; and as they are paid by the line, a
harsh prosaic brevity is by no means their fault. Occa-
sionally they take in the papers. Not long since a most
extraordinary breach of promise case went the round
of the evening papers, which was entirely a fiction of the
penny-a-liners. Yet let us not think disparagingly of
them — of a daily newspaper no small part is the result
of their diligent research. And if they do occasionally
induige in fiction, their fictions are generally founded ou
fact. The reader, if he be a wise man, "will smile and
pass on — a dull dog will take the matter seriously and
make an ass of himself. For instance, only this very year,
there was a serious controversy about Disraeli's literary
piracies, as they were called in the Manchester Examiner.
It appears a paragraph was inserted in an obscure
London journal giving an account of an evening party
at Mr. Gladstone's, at which Mr. Disraeli had been

NEWSPAPER PEOPLE. 9

present — ail event just as probable as that the Bishop
of Oxford would take tea at Mr. Spurgeon's. Mr.
Disraeli's remarks were reported, arid the paragraph —
notwithstanding its glaring absurdity — was quoted in
the Manchester Examiner. Some acute reader remem-
bered to have read a similar conversation attributed to
Coleridge, and immediately wrote to the Examiner to
that effect. The letter was unhandsomely inserted with
a bold heading, — several letters were inserted on the
same subject, and hence, just because a poor penny-a-
liner at his wits' end doctored up a little par, and
attributed a very old conversation to Mr. Disraeli, the
latter i? believed in Cottonopolis guilty of a piracy,
Cottonopolis being all the more ready to believe this of
Mr. Disraeli, as the latter gentleman is at the head
of a party not supposed to be particularly attached
to the doctrines of what are termed the Manchester
School. Eeally editors and correspondents should be
up to these little dodges, and not believe all they see in
print.

I would also speak of another class of newspaper
people — the newspaper boy, agile as a lamp-lighter,
sharp in his glances as a cat. The newspaper boy is of
all ages, from twelve to forty, but they are all alike, very
disorderly, and very ardent politicians ; and while they
are waiting in the publishing-office for their papers they
are prone to indulge in political gossip, after the manner
of their betters at the west-end clubs. On the trial of
Bernard, the excitement among the newspaper boys was

10 NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

very great. I heard some of them, on the last day of
the trial, confess to having been too excited all that day
to do anything ; their admiration of the speech of Edwin
James was intense. A small enthusiast near me said to
another, " That ere James is the fellow to work 'em ;
didn't he pitch hin to the hemperor ? "

" Yes/' said a sadder and wiser boy ; " yes, lie's all
werry well, but he'd a spoke on t'other side just as well
if he'd been paid."

"No; would he?"

" Yes, to be sure."

"Well, that's wot I call swindling."

"]NTo, it ain't. They does their best. Them as
pays you, you works for."

"Whether the explanation was satisfactory I can't
say, as the small boy's master's name was called, and he
vanished with "two quire" on his youthful head. But
generally these small boys prefer wit to politics ; they
are much given to practical jokes at each other's expense,
and have no mercy for individual peculiarities. Theirs
is a hard life, from five in the morning, when the daily
papers commence publishing, to seven in the evening,
when the second edition of the Sun with the Gazette
appears. What becomes of them when they cease to be
newspaper boys, must be left to conjecture. Surely such
riotous youths can never become tradesmen in a small
way, retailers of greens, itinerant dealers in coal. Do
not offend these gentry if you are a newspaper proprietor.
'Their power for mischief is great. At the Illustrated

NEWSPAPER PEOPLE. 11

News office I have seen a policeman required to reduce
them to order.

Finally, of all newspaper people, high or low, let me
ask the public to speak charitably. They are hard-
worked, they are not over-paid, and some of them die
prematurely old. Ten years of night-work in the office
of a daily newspaper is enough to kill any man, even if he
has the constitution of a horse ; one can't get on without
them ; and it is a sad day for his family when Pater-
familias misses his paper. Whigs, tories, prelates,
princes, valiant warriors, and great lawyers, are not so
essential to the daily weal of the public, as newspaper
people. In other ways they are useful — the great British
turalist, Mr. Yarell, was a newspaper vendor.

CHAPTER II.

SPIRITUALISM.

Ix the Morning Star, a few months since, appeared a
letter from ATilliam Howitt, intimating that if the reli-
gious public wished to hear a man truly eloquent and
religious, a Christian and a genius, they could not do
better than go and hear the Rev. Mr. Harris. Accord-
ingly, one Sunday in January, we found ourselves part
of a respectable congregation, chiefly males, assembled
to hear the gentleman aforesaid. The place of meeting
was the Music Hall, Store-street ; the reverend gentle-
man occupying the platform, and the audience filling up
the rest of the room. It is difficult to judge of numbers,
but there must have been four or five hundred persons
present. Mr. Harris evidently is an American, is, we
should imagine, between thirty and forty, and with his
low black eye -brows, and black beard, and sallow coun-
tenance, has not a very prepossessing appearance. He
had very much of the conventional idea of the methodist
parson. I do not by this imply that the conventional
idea is correct, but simply that we have such a conven-
tional idea, and that Mr. Harris answers to it. As I

SPIRITUALISM:. 13

have intimated that I believe Mr. Harris is an American,
I need not add that he is thin, and that his figure is of
moderate height. The subject on which he preached
was the axe being laid at the foot of the tree, and at
considerable length — the sermon lasted more than an hour
— the reverend gentleman endeavoured to show that men
lived as God was in them, and that we were not to
judge from a few outward signs that God was in them,
and, as instances of men filled and inspired by God's
Spirit, we had our Saxon Alfred, Oliver Cromwell, and
Florence Nightingale. In the prayer and sermon of the
preacher there was very little to indicate that he was
preaching a new gospel. The principal thing about him
wras his action, which, in some respects, resembled that of
the great American Temperance orator, Mr. Gough.
Mr. Harris endeavours as much as possible to dramatise
his sermon. He stands on tiptoe, or he sinks down
into his desk, he points his finger, and shrugs up his
shoulders. He has a considerable share of poetical and
oratorical power, but he does not give you an idea of
much literary culture. He does not bear you away " far,
far above this lower world, up where eternal ages roll."
You find that it was scarce worth while coming all the
way from New "York to London, unless the Eev. Gentle-
man has much more to say, and in a better manner, than
the sermon delivered in Store-steet. Of course I am
not a Spiritualist. I am one of the profane — I am little
better than one of the wicked, though I, and all men
who are not beasts, feel that man is spirit as well as

14 SPIRITUALISM.

flesh ; that he is made in the image of his Maker ; that
the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.
Spiritualism in this sense is old as Adam and Eve, old as
the day when Jehovah, resting from his labours, pro-
nounced them to be good. But this is not the Spiri-
tualism of Mr. Harris, and of the organ of his denomina-
tion, The Spiritual Magazine. That spirits appear to us
— that they move tables — that they express their mean-
ing by knocks, form the great distinctive peculiarity
of Spiritualism, and they are things which people in
our days are many of them more and more beginning to
believe. At any rate the Spiritualists of the new school
ought not to be angry Avith us. Mr. Howitt writes,
( ' Moles don't believe in eagles, nor even skylarks ; they
believe in the solid earth and earth-worms; — things
which soar up into the air, and look full at the noon
sun, and perch on the tops of mountains, and see wide
prospect of the earth and air, of men and things, are
utterly incomprehensible, and therefore don't exist, to
moles. Things which, like skylarks, mount also in the
air, to bathe their tremulous pinions in the living setlier,
and in the floods of golden sunshine, and behold the
earth beneath ; the more green, and soft, and beautiful,
because they see the heavens above them, and pour out
exulting melodies which are the fruits and streaming
delights of and in these things, are equally incompre-
hensible to moles, which, having only eyes of the size of
pins' heads, and no ears that ordinary eyes can discover,
neither can see the face of heaven, nor hear the music

SPIRITUALIS1T. 1 5

of the spheres, nor any other music. Learned pigs
don't believe in pneumatology, nor in astronomy, but
in gastronomy. They believe in troughs, pig-nuts, and
substantial potatoes. Learned pigs see the wind, or
have credit for it — but that other Tlvevpa, which we
translate SPIRIT, they most learnedly ignore. Moles and
learned pigs were contemporaries of Adam, and have
existed in all ages, and, therefore, they know that there
are no such things as eagles, or skylarks and their songs ;
no suns, skies, heavens, and their orbs, or even suck
sublunary objects as those we call men and things.
They know that there is nothing real, and that there are
no genuine entities, but comfortable dark burrows, earth-
worms, pig-troughs, pig-nuts, potatoes, and the like
substantiate." If this be so, — and Mr. Howitt is an old
man and ought to know, especially when he says there
are not in London at this time half-a-dozen literary or
scientific men who, had they lived in Christ's time,
would have believed in him — well, there is no hope for
us. Spiritualism is beyond our reach ; it is a thing too
bright for us. It is high, we cannot attain unto it.
The other Sunday night, Mr. Harris was very spiritual,
at any rate, very impractical and unworldly. At the
close of the service he informed us that some few of his
sermons, containing an outline of his religious convic-
tions, were for sale at the doors, and would be sold at
one penny and a half, a mere insignificant sum, just
sufficient to cover the expense of paper and printing.
On inquiring, we found, of the three sermons, one was

16 SPIIUTUALISM.

published at three-halfpence, one at twopence, and one
at fourpence, prices which, if we may judge by the copy
we purchased, would yield a fair profit, if the sale were
as great as it seemed to be on Sunday night.

But Mr. Harris is a poet — there is not such another
in the universe. The Golden Age opens thus : —

" As many ages as it took to form
The \vorld, it takes to form the human race.
Humanity was injured at its birth,
And its existence in the past has been
That of a suffering infant. God through Christ
Appearing, healed that sickness, pouring down
Interior life : so Christ our Lord became
The second Adam, through whom all shall live.
This is our faith. The world shall yet become
The home of that great second Adam's seed ;
Christ-forms, both male and female, who from Him
Derive their ever-growing perfectness,
Eventually shall possess the earth,
And speak the rythmic language of the skies,
And mightier miracles than His perform ;
They shall remove all sickness from the race,
Cast out all devils from the church and stato,
And hurl into oblivion's hollow sea
The mountains of depravity. Then earth,
Prom the Antarctic to the Arctic Pole,
Shall blush with flowers ; the isles and continents
Teem with harmonic forms of bird and beast,
And fruit, and glogious shapes of art more fair
Than man's imagination yet conceived,
Adorn the stately temples of a new
Divine religion. Every human soul

SPIRITUALISM. 17

A second Adam, and a second Eve,

Shall dwell with its pure counterpart, conjoined

In sacramental marriage of the heart.

God shall be everywhere, and not, as now,

Guessed at, but apprehended, felt and kuowii." — p. 1.

I will take, says Mr. Howitt, as a fair specimen of
the poetry and broad Christian philosophy of this
spiritual epic, the recipe for writing a poem. In this, we
see how far the requirements of Spiritualism are beyond
the standard of the requirements of the world in poetry.
They include the widest gatherings of knowledge, and
still wider and loftier virtues and sympathies.

"To write a poem, man should be as pure
As frost-flowers ; every thought should be in tune
To heavenly truth, and Nature's perfect law,
Bathing the soul in beauty, joy, and peace.
His heart should ripen like the purple grape ;
His country should be all the universe ;
His friends the best and wisest of all time.
He should be universal as the light,
And rich as summer in ripe-fruited love-
He should have power to draw from common things.
Essential truth ! — and, rising o'er all fear
Of papal devils and of pagan gods,
Of ancient Satans, and of modern ghosts,
Should recognise all spirits as his friends,
And see the worst but harps of golden strings
Discordant now, but destined at the last
To thrill, inspired with God's own harmony,
And make sweet music with the heavenly host.

c

18 SPIRITUALISM.

He should forget his private preference

Of country or religion, and should see

All parties and all creeds with equal eye ;

His^the religion of true harmony ;

Christ the ideal of his lofty aim ;

The viewless Friend, the Comforter, and Guide,

The joy in grief, whose every element

Of life received in child-like faith,

Becomes a part of impulse, feeling, thought —

The central fire that lights his being's sun.

He should not limit Nature by the known ;

Nor limit God by what is known of him ;

Nor limit man by present states and moods ;

But see mankind at liberty to draw

Into their lives all Nature's wealth, and all

Harmonious essences of life from God,

And so, becoming god-like in their souls,

And universal in their faculties,

Informing all their age, enriching time,

And building up the temple of the world

With massive structures of eternity.

He shall not fail to see how infinite

God is above humanity, nor yet

That God is throned in universal man,

The greater mind of pure intelligence,

Unlimited by states, moods, periods, creeds,

Self-adequate, self-balanced in his love,

And needing nothing and conferring all,

And asking nothing and receiving all,

Akin by love to every loving heart,

By nobleness to every noble mind,

By truth to all who look through natural forms,

And feel the throbbing arteries of law

In every pulse of nature and of man."

SPIRITUALISM. 19

The peculiar doctrine of the Spiritualists seems to be
the belief in Spiritual intercourse, and in mediums ; as
The Spiritual Magazine tells us "the only media we
know accessible to the public are Mrs. Marshal and her
neice, of 22, Eed Lion-street, Holborn," we need not
give ourselves much trouble about them. Concerning
intercourse with departed spirits, an American Judge
writes, " The first thing demonstrated to us is that we
can commune with the spirits of the departed ; that such
communion is through the instrumentality of persons
yet living ; that the fact of mediumship is the result of
physical organization; that the kind of communion is
affected by moral causes, and that the power, like our
other faculties, is possessed in different degrees, and is
capable of improvement by cultivation," and from this
doctrine the believers gather j comfortable assurances.
The Judge adds, "These things being established, by
means which show a settled purpose and an intelligent
design, they demonstrate man's immortality, and that in
the simplest way, by appeals alike to his reason, to Ins
affections, and to his senses. They thus show that they
whom we once knew as living on earth do yet live, after
having passed the gates of death, and leave in our minds
the irresistible conclusion, that if they thus live we shall.
This task Spiritualism has already performed on its
thousands and its tens of thousands — more, indeed, in
the last ten years than by all the pulpits in the land —
and still the work goes bravely on. God speed it ; for
it is doing what man's unaided reason has for ages tried

c 2

20 SPIRITUALISM.

in vain to do, aiid what, in this age of infidelity, seemed
impossible to accomplish. Thus, too, is confirmed to us
the Christian religion, which so many have questioned or
denied. Not, indeed, that which sectarianism gives us,
nor that which descends to us from the dark ages,
corrupted by selfishness or distorted by ignorance, but
that which was proclaimed through the spiritualism of
Jesus of Nazareth in the simple injunction — ' Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment ; and the second is like unto it —
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets/ ''

In the case of Mr. Harris, it seems to us, he lays his
stress upon these peculiar doctrines, and rather aims at a
universal Christianity ; in all sects he sees goodness, and
he would combine them all into his own. He and his
disciples have found what all the rest are seeking after.
His Christianity is the faith which all good spirits own,
which all. angels reverence. Christ came to reveal this
faith : the whole world is but an expression of it ; the
whole universe but an illustration of it; and as we
become Christ-like, in the renunciation of self, and the
acceptance of the great law of service in the Lord and to
the Lord, more and more we attain to an internal percep-
tion of the verities of that faith. The Word is opened
before us, and the natural universe is perceived to be its
outward illustration. The new church takes its stand
upon this fundamental doctrine of regeneration, and it is

SPIRITUALISM. 21

to the putting forth of this in art, science, literature,
poetry, preaching, in all the uses of an ordered life, that
the energy of the true churchman is continually, in the
Divine Providence, directed. And to those thus regene-
rated it is given to become mediums. Mr. Harris, in
his sermon preached at the Marylebone Literary and
Scientific Institution, May 29, 1859, says : "Any man,
good or bad, can become a medium for spirits. I have
seen the vilest and the most degraded made the organs
through which spirits utterly lost, yet with something of
the beams of the fallen archangel's faded brightness
lingering in the intellect — I say I have seen such, as well
as others, earnest, sincere, and worthy, become the organs
of communication between the visible and invisible
spirits. But no man can become a medium, an organ or
.oracle for the Spirit, for the Word made flesh, giving to
every man according to his will, until he hath passed
through the door of penitence — until he hath gone up
through the gateway of a sincere conversion, or turning
from his evil — until he hath consecrated himself to the
great law of right — until he hath voluntarily taken up
all the burdens which God in his providence, whether
social, or domestic, or moral, has imposed upon him —
until, at any cost or any hazard, he hath sought to do,
in his daily life, those things which God in His word
doth most authoritatively and continually command. All
such may, all such do, become, all such are, the mediums
*of the Lord Christ, omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal,
walking, as the Divine Man, in the midst of the paradise

22 SPIRITUALISM:.

of the angels. Breathing forth His breath, and so
vivifying the very air which the angels respire and live,
He breathes down that great aura upon us continually.
In prayer, and in the good self-sacrificing life, we drink
in that aura. The breath of God inflows into the lungs ;
the thought of God streams into consciousness; the
energies of God are directed to the will ; man, weak,
becomes strong; man, ignorant, becomes wise; man,
narrow, becomes broad ; man, sectarian, becomes catholic
and liberal ; man, self-conceited, becomes reverent and
humble ; man, transformed from the image of the tiger,
the ape, the serpent, takes upon himself, in Christ, the
angels' image. And as we drink in more and more of
this Divine Spirit, our path in life — the path of humble
uses (not the path of self-seeking ambition; not the
path of prying curiosity), groweth brighter and brighter
unto the perfect day."

2:3

CHAPTER III.
ABOUT COAL.

I AH sitting by iny sea-coal fire, and, from the clear way
in which it burns, and the peculiarly pleasant warmth it
seems to give out, I have every reason to believe that
the thermometer is below the freezing point, that the
ground is hard as iron, and that before to-morrow's sun
rises, Jack Frost will not only have lavishly strewn the
earth with pearls, but have sketched fairy landscapes
innumerable on my window-panes. Ah, well, it matters
little to me :

" The storm without might rain and ristle,
Tarn did na mind the storm a \vhistle."

The respected partner of my joys and sorrows has
retired to roost, far away in the nursery the maternal
pledges of our affection have done ditto. Unless an
amorous member of that inestimable class of public
servants — the metropolitan police — be at this moment
engaged in a furtive flirtation with the cook, I have no
reason to believe that, beside myself, an}- of my limited
establishment is awake. My boots are off — I have an
old coat on — I have done my day's work — I don't owe

24 ABOUT COAL.

anybody any money (the reader need not believe this) —
I poke the fire — I light a cigar — and think there is
nothing like a good fire after all.

I am thankful I am not in Paris now: I take down
iny French Pocket Dictionary, published by Orr in 1850,
and cannot find the French for fire-place ; I find fire-
arms, fire-ball, fire-brand, fire-brush, fire-cross, fire-lock,
but no fire-place. Ah, here it is (fire-side, foyer — sub-
stantive, masculine) ; but, to make quite sure, I turn to
the French-English, and I turn up foyer there ; and,
here, I find it means, ' ' heat, tiring-room, green-room,"
and so on. Well, am I not right ? there is nothing like
an English fire-place after all. The Germans are not
much better off than the French ; the German porcelain
stove, for instance, standing in the middle of the room,
like a monument, and nearly filling it, is not for a second
to be compared with a jolly English fire ; besides, it is
very dangerous, and, when the flue gets stopped is, I was
going to write, as great a murderer as a medical man. Can
I ever forget how when I lived in the Kirchen Strasse
of a far-famed and delightful city, distant about 700
miles from where I write, how one morning I came
down-stairs to have my frvJistiick, and how, in the very
middle of my meal, I felt an uncomfortable sensation, as
a gigantic Dane was reading to me a memorial he was
about to address to the British government ? May I tell
the reader how at first I thought the document to which
I have referred might have something to do with it ?
Will he forgive me, if 1 narrate how, at length, I gra-

ABOUT COAL. 25

dually came to the conclusion that the cause was in the
atmosphere, which seemed to be splitting my head, and
swelling out my body to the point of bursting ? can he
imagine my deplorable situation when I became insen-
sible, and when I recovered consciousness found that I
had been poisoned by the fumes of charcoal, and that I
.should then and there have shuffled off this mortal coil,
had not my Danish friend, for a wonder, lifted up his
eyes from his precious document, and, seeing me go off,
thrown open the window, and, in a polyglottic way,
called for help ? Truly, then, may I say, that, for com-
fort, and for safety, and for warmth, if you can have it
pretty nearly all to yourself, and do one side thoroughly
first before YOU roast the other, there is nothing like an

t *

English fireplace in the world.

Woe is me ! the present generation, — a generation
most assuredly wise in its own eyes, can never know
what I, and others verging on forty, know — the real
luxury of an English fire after travelling all night as an
outside passenger on the top, say, for instance, of the
Royal London and Yarmouth mail. Pardon my emotion,
but I must shut my eyes, and endeavour to recall the
past. It is six o'clock on a night cold as that in which
I now write; I am at the ancient hostelry, now gone to
the dogs, known as the White Horse, Fetter Lane, on
the top of the mail aforesaid. The many-caped coach-
man, has clambered up into his seat; I sit by his side,
perched somewhat like a mummy ; outside and in we
are full of passengers. The red-coated guard blows

26 ABOUT COAL.

cheerily on the far-resounding horn. " Let them go/'
gays the coachman, and four faultless greys, impatient of
restraint, rush forth with their living load: in a twinkling
we stoop under the ancient gateway, and turn into Tetter
Lane ; now we cautiously descend Holborn Hill, skilfully
we are steered through Cheapside, past the Mansion
House, through Cornhill, along dark and sullen Leaden-
hall, "Whitechapel, all glaring with gas and butcher's
meat ; our driver gives the horses their heads, and our
pace becomes pleasant. We pass Bow Church, and the
bridge at Stratford, and now we have left the gaslights
far behind, above us is the grand dome of heaven studded
with its myriads of stars. Hedge and field far and near
are covered with a mantle of virgin snow. The traffic on
the road has trodden it into firmness, and on we speed
till we reach Romford, not then as now known all over
London for its ales. I believe these ales are the occasion
of an anecdote, which I may here repeat : — Two friends
went into a public-house and were regaled plentifully
with them, but not finding them so strong as they wished
were much disgusted, and rose to go; however, they had
not gone far before the ale began to tell ; one traveller
soon found himself in a ditch on one side of the road,
while his friend was prostrate hi another. "Holloa,"
said the one to the other, " that ale war'nt so bad as I
thought." "No, no," was the reply of his now appa-
rently-satisfied friend. But here we are at Eomford.
Fresh cattle are standing ready to take the place of the
our who have gallantly drawn us hither. But there is

ABOUT COAL. 27

time to jump down, and " have a drop of summut short/'
to catch a glimpse from the most glorious of fires, and to
feel for the buxom landlady, and her clean and rosy-
cheeked Hebes, very strong feelings of personal regard.
''All ready," cries the ostler, and away we rush from
this fairy land, as it seems to us, out into the cold dark
night ; the guard blows his horn ; curtains are drawn on
one side as we pass, that, out of warm rooms, curious
eyes may look on us. The pikekeeper bids us, for him,
an unusually cheerful good-night, and by this time some
of the old pilots returning to Southwold, or Lowest oft,
or Yarmouth, after having been with vessels up the
Thames, cheered by the contents of various libations,
wake the dull ear of night with songs occasionally
amatory, but chiefly of a nautical character; and if there
is a chorus, — why, we can all join in that ; are we not
jolly companions, every one ? Does not this beat railway
travelling ? "I believe you, iny boys." I say the present
race of men have no conception of this. Why, look at a
London omnibus ; for nine months out of the twelve a
cockney can't ride, even from the Bank to Pimlico*
without getting inside. A friend of mine, one of the
good old sort, rides into town winter and summer outside
a distance of about nine miles. " Of course you wear a
respirator/' said a young cockney to him. My friend
only laughed. "When, the Eoyal Yarmouth Mail ran its
gay career, there were no respirators then. "What if
the night were cold — what if snow laid heavily on the
ground — what if railway rugs were not ; did we not sit

28 ABOUT COAL.

close together and keep each other warm — did we not
smoke the most fragrant of weeds — did we not, while the
coach changed horses, jump down, and, rushing into the
cosiest of bar-parlours (forgive us, J. B. Gough), swallow
brandy-and-water till our faces were as scarlet peonies,
and we tingled, down to the very soles of our feet, with
an unwonted heat ? A coal fire then was a sight to
cheer the cockles of one's heart, to look forward to for
.one long stage, and to think of for another. But times
change, and we with them. The other day I met one
of our mail-coachmen ingloriously driving a two-pair
buss between the City and Norwood; he looked down at
his horses and then up at us with an expression Robson
might have envied. Let me return to coal. Gentle
reader, did you ever go down a coal-pit ? — I once did,
.and I think, with Sheridan, it is hardly worth while going
down one, when you might just as well say you had been.
I was a stranger then to coal-pits and collieries, rather
greener then than I am now, and had on a bran-new suit
of clothes and patent-leather boots, and thus accoutred I
was let down into the bowels of the earth, wandered along
little ways in beds of coal, past little nooks where black
men were at work, or resting on lumps of coal dining on
bread-and-bacon, and drinking cold tea; and then there
were tramways, and horses drawing the coal to the mouth
of the pit, and boys to drive the horses, and boys to hold
lamps, and all around you was black coal, save where it
shone with the reflection of your light, and beneath you
trod in mud, all made of coal-dust and water, of a

ABOUT COAL. 2£f

character to ruin patent-leather for ever. I was not
sorry, I assure you, when I left the lower regions, and
Avas hauled up to the light of day. Once upon a time,
an exciseman at Merthyr Tydvil was overcome by liquor
(for excisemen are but men) and fell asleep. Excisemen
are not generally a very popular class of Her Majesty's
subjects, and there are many who owe them a grudge.
This was the case with our hero. Accordingly, the enemy,
in the shape of half-a-dozen dusky colliers, made their
appearance, and deposited their unconscious prize,

" Full many a fathom deep,"

as Mr. Campbell says, in a coal pit. Alas ! the in-
spiration of wine is but short-lived. From his glorious
dreams of marble halls the exciseman awoke ; wonder-
iugly he opened his eyes and looked around. Where
was he? To what dark and dolorous shades had he
been conveyed? That conscience which does make
cowards of us all answered the question : — he had been
for his sins conveyed to that fearful locality which a
popular clergyman once told his hearers he would not
shock their feelings by naming in so well-bred and
respectable an assembly ; there he was, far away from the
light of the sun and the haunts of men. Everything
around him was dark and drear. At length a faint
glimmer of light appeared in the distance. It came
nearer and nearer, by its light he saw a form he thought
resembled the human, but of that he was not quite sure.
The exciseman felt with Hamlet :

30 ABOUT COAL.

'• Be tkoxi a spirit of health or goblin damned.
Bring with thec airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou cornest in such a questionable shape
That I v.Til speak to thee."

Accordingly lie spoke, and very naturally asked the
new-corner, " Who are you ? " " Why, I was when I
lived on earth an exciseman, but now I arn — " " You
don't say so," exclaimed the interrogator, as sober as he
ever was in his life. But the joke had now been carried
far enough, and the exciseman gladly returned to the
light of day, and the society of his fellow-man.

A coal pit, or rather a coal country, such as that
you see around Merthyr Tydvil, or as you speed on by
the Great Northern to Newcastle, does not give you a
bad idea of Pandemonium. A coal pit is generally
situated by the side of some bleak hill where there are
but few signs of life. A cloud of smoke from the
engine, or engines, hangs heavily all round. The work-
men, of whom there may be hundreds, with the
exception o'f a few boys, who stand at the mouth of
the pit to unload the coal waggons as they come up, or
to run them into the tram-road that connects them with
the neighbouring railroad, or canal, are all under-ground.
If you descend, a lighted candle is put into your hand,
and you must grope your way as best you can. If the
vein of coal be a pretty good one you will be able to
walk comfortably without much trouble, but you must
mind and not be run over by the coal waggons always

ABOUT COAL. 31

passing along. As you proceed you will observe
numerous passages on each side which lead to the stalls
in which the men work, and hard work it is, I can
assure you : a great block is first undermined, and then
cut out by wedges driven into the solid coal ; I believe
the work is chiefly contracted for at so much a ton.
In these little stalls the men sit, and dine, and smoke.
Little else is to be seen in a coal pit. There are doors
by which the air is forced along the different passages ;
there are engines by wliich the water is drained off;
there is constant communication between the upper and
the lower world, all going on with a methodical exact-
ness which can only be violated with loss of life Let
the engines cease, and possibly in a couple of hours the
pit may be filled with water. Let a workman, as is too
often the case, enter his stall with a candle instead of
with a safety lamp, and an explosion may occur which
may be attended with the loss of many lives ,- but the
rule is care and regularity, each man doing his part in a
general whole. The mortality in coal mining is still unusu-
ally great. It is ascertained that of the total number of
220,000 persons employed as colliers, 1000 are killed
annually — that is to say, the poor collier has 1000 more
chances of being killed at his work than any one of the
whole travelling public has of being killed or injured on
English railways. Dr. Philip Holland read a paper on
the subject at a recent meeting of the Society of Arts.
He stated that out of 8015 deaths by accidents in eight
year?, 1984 (or about one -fourth) were caused by ex-

32 ABOUT COAL.

plosions. Remarkable it is, that in the northern
counties of Durham and Northumberland (in which one-
fourth of the coal is raised, and one-fifth of the collier
population employed) the average deaths per annum
from explosions do not exceed 21 out of 248 ; and as-
the average of such deaths for the whole country, in-
cluding the Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire
districts, is 105, so 143 lives yearly are lost because the
precautions against explosion proved to be effectual in
the extreme north are neglected in all the other districts.
Equally remarkable it is that falls of roof have caused
nearly 1000 more deaths in the eight years than ex-
plosions, although the latter chiefly excite public feeling.
Here, again, the extreme northern district affords a
gratifying contrast with the others, as, out of an average
of 371 such accidents yearly, only 49 occur there. It
is suggested that the comparative immunity of the
north from this cause of accident is attributable to the
fact, that one man in six belongs to the safety staff, who
are charged with the superintendence of ventilation,
road, and prop making, &c. In other parts no sucli
person is employed, and the men in their anxiety to get
coal neglect these salutary means of safety. The next
greatest number of fatal accidents occurs in the shafts,
1734 in the eight years. Here, again, the cautious
north exhibits its superiority, its proportion of fatalities
from this source not being more than a fifth part of the
proportion throughout the country. Other fatalities
there are, principally the result of bad discipline, the

ABOUT COAL. 33

employment of too large a proportion of boys under
fifteen years, the use of machinery where hand-pulling
would be preferable, the narrowness of the galleries, and
such like. Dr. Holland notices that the system of
government inspection has, in the southern coal districts,
led to the discontinuance of the services of " viewers,"
or mine engineers, to direct the operations, which it
never was intended to do. Either these viewers must,
us a rule, be reinstated, or the government system of
inspection must be enormously increased. Among the
means suggested to prevent accidents is that of making
the coal owner civilly responsible for accidents caused by
the obvious neglect of reasonable precautions in the
working. In the course of the discussion which fol-
lowed, it was urged that the workers should no more be
exempted from the penal consequences of neglect than
the employers.

Fancy — I can do it easily, over my sea-coal fire —
fancy the coal dug out of the pit, put into a waggon,
that waggon put on a railway — travelling, it may be,
some distance, and depositing its precious burden in a
collier's hold ; imagine this collier put to sea, and safely
arrived in the Thames . As Mr. Cobden said, " "What
next, and next ? " Here a new agency comes into play,
the coal cannot come right to my fire. We leave the
collier at Gravesend and land, let us say, at Billingsgate.
— never mind the fish, nor the porters, nor the fair
dealers in marine products. Come right away into
Thames Street — cross it if you can, for this street, of

D

34 ABOUT COAL.

all London streets, bears away the palin for being-
blocked up at all times and seasons, and this morning
there has been a block lasting a couple of hours ; but
the people here are used to it, and do not think it worth
while to have recourse to hard words, nor to repeat
sounds very much like oaths, nor to grow red in the
face and threaten each other, as is the case with the
angry Jehus of Cheapside and Holborn Hill. We
enter a handsome building by a semi-circular portico,
with Eomau Doric columns, and a tower 106 feet
high. A beadle in magnificent livery, and of an
unusually civil character — for beadledom is generally
a terror to our species — meets us. We wish to see
our friend^ right into the middle of a busy group of
coal dealers and factors the beadle rushes, and repeats
the name of our friend ; up one story, 'and then another,
and then another, the sound ascends ; our friend hears
it, and, rapidly descending, gives us a welcome as-
warm as his own fire-side. We begin our voyage of
discovery : — first we descend and examine a Boinan
well, in excellent preservation, discovered in excavat-
ing the foundation of the new building. The water
looks thick and muddy, but they tell you it is clear :
but the fact that it ebbs and flows seems to connect it
with the Thames; and Thames water, when taken
opposite Billingsgate, is not generally considered clear.
We again ascend to the ground-floor, which is a
rotunda sixty feet in diameter, covered by a glazed
dome seventy-four feet from the floor. This circular

ABOUT COAL. 35

hall has three tiers of projecting galleries running
round it; the floor is composed of 4000 pieces of inlaid
wood, in the form of a mariner's compass ; in the centre
is the city shield, anchor, &c., the dagger blade in the
arms being a piece of mulberry tree, planted by Peter
the Great when he worked as a shipwright in Deptford
Dockyard. The place is worth coming to see — country
cousins ought to look at it ; the entrance vestibule, Mr.
Timbs, in his " Curiosities of London/' informs us,
is richly embellished with vases of fruit, arabesque
foliage, terminal figures, &c. In the rotunda, between
the Raphaelesque scroll-supports, are panels painted with
impersonations of the coal-bearing rivers of England —
the Thames, Mersey, Severn, Trent, Humber, Aire,
Tyne, &c. : and above them, within flower borders,
are figures of "Wisdom, Fortitude, Vigilance, Temper-
ance, Perseverance, "Watchfulness, Justice, and Faith.
The arabesques in the first story are views of coal
mines — "Wallsend, Percy, Pit Main, Regent's Pit, &c.
The second and third storey panels are painted with
miners at work; and the twenty-four ovals at the
springing of the dome have, upon a turquoise blue
ground, figures of fossil plants found in coal formations.
The minor ornamentation is flowers, shells, snakes,
lizards, and other reptiles, miners' tools and nautical
subjects; — there you can see all the process of coal
mining, without troubling yourself to go down a mine,
and in a small museum, too small for such a grand
building and such a wealthy trade, curious specimens

D2

36 ABOUT COAL.

of fossil products and coal will make the observer still
more learned ; but let us look at the living mass be-
neath. Some of the men below are famous city names.
There sometimes you may see Sir James Duke, who
came to London a clerk, poor and under-paid, on
board a man-of-war, and who on this Coal Exchange
has made a colossal fortune, and who was made ,i
baronet, he being at the time Lord Mayor, when the
New Exchange was opened by Prince Albert, on the
29th Oct., 1849, accompanied by the Prince of Wales
and the Princess Eoyal. Here oftener you may see
Hugh Taylor, M.P., who began life as a cabin-boy,
then became a captain, then was developed into a coal-
owner, and who is said to be a perfect Midas, and
possesses an art, very much thought of by city people,
of turning everything he touches into gold. On a
door just below where we stand is inscribed the name
of Lord Ward, for even noblemen don't mind sullying
their fingers with vulgar trade, if anything is to be
made by it. And there is the name of a Welsh coal-
owner, who, some fifty years back, was a clerk in a
certain timber merchant's, at a guinea a week, and who
now, I believe, can raise and ship a couple of thousand
tons of coal a day. Depend upon it there is some
money made by these black diamonds, and the cor-
poration of London know it, for they have managed
to get a tax levied of one penny on every ton of
coals, whether brought by sea or rail within thirty
miles of where we stand. What they do with the

ABOUT COAL. 37

enormous sum thus collected it is impossible to say ;
it is true they built this handsome Exchange, at a
cost altogether of £9], 167. 11s. 8d., but that is a small
part of their receipts. When the tax was first levied
it did not much matter; about the year 1550 one or
two ships sufficed for the coal trade of London. On
Friday, December 2nd, 1859, the number of ships
with cargoes for sale on that day was not less than 340
— and on an average each ship employed in the coal
trade carries 300 tons of coal. In the month of October
alone there were brought into the London markets
283,849 tons by sea, and by rail 95,195 tons and
three-quarters. Of course in winter time the trade
is very brisk. The retail dealers in the metropolis
will tell you that a few cold clays make an enormous
difference in the sale of coals, and the large dealers are
driven to their wits' end as to how they can find enough
waggons and horses to enable them to supply their
customers. In the large coal-yards in the winter time
the men are at work from five in the morning till late,
very late, at night. I am thankful for their industry, I
hope they are well paid.

But I have not yet said how the business at the
Coal Exchange is carried on. There are two classes of
men connected with the place, — the factors, who have
a handsomely furnished room up above, and who elect
each other by ballot, — and the merchants, who have a
room below, to which they pay so much a year, and to
the use of which they also are elected by ballot. On

38 ABOUT COAL.

the topmost story of all are the offices of the gentlemen
who collect the city dues, and render themselves useful
in similar ways. When the colliers arrive at Gravesend,
a messenger is sent up with their names and the number
of coals on board, and so on. Each ship is consigned to
a London factor, and in the official room is a large case
full of pigeon-holes, in which the papers for each factor
are deposited ; these papers are collected by the factor's
clerks, and with these the factor goes into the market to
sell ; for if he does not sell — unless the charter party
permit him to wait for a second market day — he has to
pay a demurrage of three-halfpence a ton, a demurrage,
however, often submitted to rather than the coals should
be sold at a loss of a shilling per ton. A bell rings at
twelve, and all at once you see, by the sudden apparition
of merchants and factors from the surrounding offices,
that business has commenced; however, little is done
till towards the close at two, the factors till then holding
out for high prices, and the merchants holding back. I
may add that there is very little speculation in this
trade, all is fair and above-board. In the rooms of the
factors, as well as of the merchants, is a daily list of what
vessels have arrived at Gravesend, with what amount of
cargo, and what vessels are on their way, and how many
are going up to the north in ballast ; thus the buyer
knows as much about the state of the trade as the seller
— and as he thinks the factor must sell before the market
is over, he waits till the very last before he concludes
his bargain. At the end of the market, when there is a

ABOUT COAL. 39

"heavy sale, people get a little excited. They arc also
rather more numerous and noisy than when you first
-entered, and, besides the regular dealers, a good many
others are present : sailors out of curiosity, captains who
want to know who are the purchasers of their coals,
and where they are to deliver them to ; general dealers,
who do riot belong either to the Factor's Society or that
of the Coal Merchants' ; and here and there a lady may
be seen gazing with curious eyes on the groups below.
When the sales are effected, the broker pays the city
dues — for bulk must not be broken till then under a
penalty of five hundred pounds — and a gentleman
attests the purchases, and publishes them in a list, sent
that evening to all subscribers as the real authenticated
state of the markets for that day. I may as well say
that the market-days are Monday, "Wednesday, and
Friday. By way of compendium, I add, that the price
of coals, as given in the daily newspapers, is the price
up to the time when the coals are whipped from the
ship to the merchants' barges. It includes, 1st, the
value of the coals at the pit's mouth ; 2nd, the expense
of transit from the pit to the ship ; 3rd, the freight of
the ship to London ; 4th, the dues ; and 5th, the whip-
ping. The public then has to pay, 6th, the merchant
for taking it to his wharf and keeping it there, and his
profit; and, 7th, the retailer for fetching it from the
merchant's, and bringing it to their doors. Of course
you may save something by going at once to the
merchant's. The poor cannot do this, and have to pay

40 ABOUT COAL.

an extra price on this, as on almost everything they
consume.

And now once more I am by my sea- coal fire, burn-
ing up cheerily in this bleak winter night. Let me light
up another cigar, and indulge in a reverie. I am in a
Welsh port on the Bristol Channel. Yesterday it was a
small borough, with an ancient castle, and an appearance
of dirt, and poverty, and age. To-day its moors have
become docks, or covered with iron roads, its few streets,
but lately deserted, now stretch far away and are teem-
ing with busy life. Where the heron flew with heavy
wings, — where the sportsman wandered in search of fowl,
— where idle boys played, thousands of habitations and
warehouses have been planted. There the snort of the iron
horse is heard morning, noon, and night. There the ships
of almost every country under heaven float. There you
meet German, and French, and Dane, and American,
and Italian, and Greek. What collects that many-
coloured and many-language-speaking crowd ? Where
has come the money to build those big warehouses, to
excavate those capacious docks, to plant those iron rails,
to make on this ancient desert a Babel busier and more
populous than Tyre or Siclon of old ? The answer is
soon given. Up those bleak hills, a few miles away,
are the coal-works, a little further still are more, a little
further still are more, beyond them are the iron- works,
and thus we go on, coal and iron everywhere, all fast
being changed by magic industry into gold. Nature
has destined England to be the workshop of the world.

ABOUT COAL. 41

She sent here the Saxon race, she filled the bowels of the
land with ores more valuable than those of Potosi. To
France and Spain she gave wine ; to the countries lying on
the Baltic, timber and grain ; to Russia, hemp and tallow ;
to Loinbardy, its rich silk ; to Calabria, its oil ; to Ceylon,
its spices ; to Persia, its pearls ; to America, its cotton ; to
China, its tea ; to California, its glittering gold ; but she
has given us the iron and the coal — without which all
her other gifts were vain — and with which all the others
can be bought. To the rank we take amidst the nations
of the earth, from the first we were destined. Ours is
not the blue sky of Italy, nor the warm breath of the
sunny south, but it is an atmosphere that fits man for
persevering industry and daily toil. Let us, then, brace
ourselves up for our mission. Let us proclaim the
dignity of labour — its beneficent effects — its more than
magical results. Let us honour the workman, whether
he stand at the loom or plough the field — or sail

" — Beyond the sunset
Or the baths of all the western stars,"

or labour in the dark and dangerous recesses of the mine.
Thus shall we build up a barricade against the mur-
derous art of war, teach all the world the advantages of
peace, and make manifest to the nations how to live.

One word more — don't let the reader go away
with the idea that there is likely to be a dearth of coals
in his time. Let him make merry by his own fireside,
and not vex his small brain about what the world will
be when the years have died away. A writer in the

42 ABOUT COAL.

Times, of May 24th, 1860, says, "As a good deal of
anxiety has been recently shown regarding the probable
extinction of the resources of steam coal in Wales, it
may be interesting to state that, by the successful results
of the prosecution for the last five years of the opera-
tions of the Navigation Works at Aberdare, near
Merthyr, all fears upon the subject may be discarded.
This pit is the largest in the world, being 18 feet in
diameter and 370 yards in depth. The estimate of its
workings is 1000 tons per day. The exposes thus far
have been £130,000, exclusive of the value of waggons,
&c.— £35,000. The ground is of a most difficult nature,
the layers often extending 15 feet without a bed, crack,
fissure, or any opening whatever. The rock had all to
be blasted with gunpowder. The resources of the seam
are comparatively boundless, the property extending
seven miles from Taff up to Cwrn Neal, and three miles
in width, covering 4000 to 5000 acres of '4 foot coal/
The royalty is for 99 years, and is held by a firm, com-
posed of Mr. John Nixon, the well-known colliery
proprietor at Merthyr; Mr. Hugh Taylor, M.P. for
Tynemouth ; and Mr. W. Cory, the large coal contractor
of London. The commencement of the use of this
smokeless coal afloat began about 1840, on board the
Thames steamboats, to work Penn's engines. In the
same year a cargo was shipped to Nantes, and given
away to the French for trial, with the sole condition that
the engineer should throw it into the furnaces and leave
it alone to stoke itself. Next, the sugar refiners

ABOUT COAL. 43

adopted it, as they suffered considerably if the steam
was not kept up to a presure of 501bs., and if allowed
to fall below that rate their works were completely
stopped. "With the Welsh coal they cleaned out their
fires but once instead of twice, and thereby effected a
saving in the working day of three hours and a half. . The
French river steamers followed^ and here the oidy ob-
jection raised was, that without the long trail of smoke
from the funnel their customers would not be able to see
their vessels approaching from a distance. The French
Government then became convinced of its efficiency, and,
adopting it, have adhered to its exclusive use ever
since. Other Governments have likewise profited by its
advantages : but, although it is consumed in the
Peninsular and Oriental Company's fleet, the Royal
Mail, Canard's, and others, the English Government has
not hitherto availed itself of it. The embryo town of
Mountain Ash, with already a population of 5,000, has
recently been the scene of great rejoicings, as the
'winning' or striking of so enormous a seam it is
expected will bring with it additional prosperity and
considerable increase to its neighbourhood."

44

CHAPTER IV.

HIGHGATE.

IF I were inclined to be dull, I would say Highgate is a
village to the north of London, with an ancient history,
a great deal of which the reader, if he be not a fool, can
imagine, and with a very fine geological formation,
indicative of salt-water where it is now very difficult to
find fresh. In order, also, that I may not weary my
reader, and establish a cheap reputation for a great deal
of learning, I will frankly confess that Highgate, means
High Gate, and nothing more. In old times, right away
from Islington Turnpike-Gate to Enfield Chase, there
was a magnificent forest, and part of this forest extended
as far as Highgate. Down in the very heart of it, in
Hornsey, the Bishop of London had a castle, and of the
Park attached to it Highgate formed a part. When the
old road to the north was found impassable, a new one
was formed over the hill, and through the Bishop's Park.
In those days pious bishops levied toll ; to collect this
toll a gate was erected, and here was Highgate, and truly
does it deserve the name. It is said the hill is 400 feet

HIGHGATE. 45

above the top of St. Paul's. Be this as it may, near
London, a lovelier spot is rarely to be met with. Artists,
poets, parties in search of the picturesque, cannot do
better than visit Highgate. At every turn you come to
the most beautiful prospects. When London will consume
its own smoke, if that time ever does arrive, the view
from Highgate, across the great city, will be the grandest
in the world. On a clear day, standing in the Archway
Road — that road esteemed such a wonder of engineering
in its day, and forming such a disastrous property for its
shareholders (the £50 shares may be bought at about
18s. a share) — you may see across the valley of the
Thames as far as the Kent and Surrey hills looming
obscurely in the distance. Close to the Archway
Tavern, but on the other side of the road, is a lofty old-
fashioned brick mansion, said to have been inhabited by
Marshal "Wade, the military hero who did so much for
the wars of Scotland, and whose memory is still pre-
served in the following very remarkable couplet :

" Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You would lift up your hands and bless General "Wade."

Well, from the top of this mansion you can see no less
than seven English counties. The number seems almost
fabulous, and if, in accordance with a well-established
rule in such cases, we only believe half Ave hear,
enough is left to convince us that the view is one of no
common kind; all that is wanted to make the scene
perfect is a little bit of water. From every part of the

46 HIGHGATE.

hill, in spite of builders and buildings, views of exquisite
beauty may be obtained. Going down towards Kentish
Town, the hill where her Majesty was nearly dashed to
pieces by the running away of the horses of her carriage
-(her royal arms on a public-house still preserves the
tradition and the memory of the man who saved her at
the peril of his life), past where Mr. Bodkin the Barrister
lives, past where William and Mary Howitt live, past
where the rich Miss Burdett Coutts has a stately
mansion, which, however, to the great grief of the
neighbourhood, she rarely adorns with her presence,
what pleasant views we have before us. It is the same
going down past St. Joseph's Eetreat to Holloway ; and
in Swain's Lane, another lane leading back to Kentish
Town, you might fancy you were in Arcady itself. Again,
stand on the brow of the hill, with your backs to London,
looking far away to distant Harrow, or ancient Barnet,
what a fair plain lies at your feet, clothed with cheerful
villas, and looking bright and warm. " Upon this hill/'
says Nordeu, "is most pleasant dwelling, yet not so
pleasant as healthful, for the expert inhabitants there
report that divers who have been long visited with sick-
nesse not curable by physicke, have in a short time
repaired their health by that sweet salutary air." In
1661, the Spanish Ambassador, Count Goncloniar, ex-
cuses his absence from the English court on the plea
that he had gone to his retreat in Highgate " to take
the fresh aire." The associations connected with High-
gate are of the most interesting character. It was

HIGHGATE. 47

coming up Highgate Hill that Dick Whittington heard
the bells prophesying that if he would return he would
be Lord Mayor of London ; a public-house still marks
the spot. It was at the bottom of Highgate Hill that
the great Bacon — the wisest and not the meanest of
mankind, that lie is at length exploded, and must dis-
appear from history — caught the cold of which he died.
11 The cause of his Lordship's death/' writes Aubrey,
who professed to have received the information from
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, " was trying an experi-
ment as he was taking the air in the coach with Dr.
Winterbourne, a Scotchman, physician to the king.
Towards' Highgate snow lay on the ground, and it came
into my Lord's thoughts why flesh might not be pre-
served in snow as in salt. They were resolved they
would try the experiment presently. They alighted out
of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at
the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen and
stuffed the body with snow, and my Lord did help to do
it himself. The snow so chilled him that he immediately
fell so ill that he could [not return to his lodgings, but
went to the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, where
they put him into a good bed warmed with a pan, but it
was a damp bed, that had not been laid in for about a
year before, which gave him such a cold, that in two or
three days, as I remember, he (Hobbes) told me he died
of suffocation." The Arundel house here referred to
does not seem to be the Aruudel House still existing in
Highgate, on the left-hand side as you, come up the main

48 HIGHGATE.

road from Islington. The Louse now bearing that
name is said to have been a residence of Nell Gwynne,
and during that period was visited by the merry monarch
himself. The creation of the title of Duke of St.
Albans, which is related to have been obtained by Xell
Gwynne in so extraordinary a manner from King Charles,
is said to have taken place at this house. A marble
bath, surrounded by curious and antique oak-work, is
there associated with her name. As the house is now in
the possession of a celebrated antiquarian, the Rev. James
Yates, M.A., it is to be hoped that it will be as little
modernised as possible. More hallowed memories apper-
tain to the next house we come to.

Andrew Marvel, patriot, was born, 1620, at Kings-
ton-upon-Hull. After taking his degree of B.A. at
Trinity College, Cambridge, he went abroad, and at
Home he wrote the first of those satirical poems which
obtained him such celebrity. In 1635, Marvel returned
to England, rich in the friendship of Milton, who a
couple of years after, thus introduced him to Bradshaw :
" I present to you Mr. Marvel, laying aside those jea-
lousies and that emulation which mine own condition
might suggest to me by bringing in such a coadjutor."
" It was most likely," writes Mrs. S. C. Hall, " during
this period that he inhabited the cottage at Highgate,
opposite to the house in which lived part of the family
of Cromwell." How Marvel became M.P. for his native
town — how he was probably the last representative paid
by his constituents, (a much better practice that than

HIGHGATE. 49

ours of representatives paying their constituents) — how
his " Rehearsal Transposed/' a witty and sarcastic poem,
not only humbled Parker, but, in the language of Bishop
Buruet, " the whole party, for from the king down to
the tradesman the book was read with pleasure," — how
he spurned the smiles of the venal court, and sleeps the
sleep of the just in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, are facts
known to all. Mason has made Marvel the hero of his
" Ode to Independence," and thus alludes to his incor-
ruptible integrity :

" Tu awful poverty his honest muse

Walks forth vindictive through a venal land ;
In vain corruption sheds her golden dews,
In vain oppression lifts her iron hand, —
He scorns them both, and armed with truth alone,
Bids lust and folly tremble on the throne."

On the other side of the way is an old stately red-brick
building, now a school, and well known as Cromwell
House. I don't find that Cromwell lived there, but
assuredly his son-in-law, Ireton, did. His arms are
elaborately carved on the ceiling of the state-rooms, the
antique stair-case and apartments retain their originality
of character, and the mansion is altogether one of very
great interest. Mr. Prickett, in his History of Highgate,
tells us Cromwell House is supposed to have been built by
the Protector, whose name it bears, about the year 1630,
as a residence for General Ireton, who married his
daughter, and was one of the commanders of his army ;
it is, however, said to have been the residence of Oliver

E

50 HIGHGATE.

Cromwell himself, but no mention is made, either in
history or his biography, of Ms ever having lived at
Highgate. Tradition states there was a subterraneous
passage from this house to the Mansion House, which
stood where the new church now stands, but of its reality
no proof has hitherto been adduced. Cromwell House
was evidently built and internally ornamented in accord-
ance with the taste of its military occupant. The stair-
case, wliich is of handsome proportions, is richly deco-
rated with oaken carved figures, supposed to have been
of persons in the General's army, in their costumes, and
the balustrades filled in with devices emblematical of
warfare. Prom the platform on the top of the mansion
may be seen a perfect panorama of the surrounding
country.

On the hill was the house of Mr. Couiers, Bencher
and Treasurer of the Middle Temple, from which, on the
3rd of June, ] 611, the Lady Arabella escaped. Her sin
was that she had married Mr. Seymour, afterwards
Marquis of Hertford. Her fate was sad ; she was recap-
tured and died in the Tower. Sir Richard Baker, author
of " The Chronicles of the Kings of England," resided at
Highgate. Dr. Sacheverel, that foolish priest, died at High-
gate. But a greater man than any we have yet named
lived here. I speak of S. T. Coleridge, who lived in a
red-brick house in the " Grove" twenty years, with his
biographer, Mr. Gillmau, wliich house is now inhabited
by Mr. Blatherwick, surgeon. It is much to be regretted
that Gilknan's Life was never completed, but a monu-

HIGHGATE. 51

merit in the new church, and a grave in the old church-
yard, mark the philosopher's connection with Highgate.
Carlyle has given us a description of what he calls
•Coleridge's philosophical moonshine. I met a lady who
remembers the philosopher well, as a snuffy old gentleman,
very fond of stroking her hair, and seeing her and
another little girl practise their dancing lessons. On one
occasion Irving came with the philosopher. As the great
man's clothes were very shabby, and as he took so much
snuff as to make her sneeze whenever she went near him,
my lady informant had rather a poor opinion of the
author of " Christabel " and the " Ancient Mariner.'*
A contemporary writer, more akin in philosophy to
Coleridge than Thomas Carlyle, and more able to appre-
ciate the wondrous intellect of the man than the little
lady to whom I have already referred, says, " I was in
his company about three hours, and of that time he-
spoke during two and three-quarters. It would have
been delightful to listen as attentively, and certainly as
easy for liim to speak just as well, for the next forty-
eight hours. On the whole, his conversation, or rather
monologue, is by far the most interesting I ever read or
heard of. Dr. Johnson's talk, with which it is obvious
to compare it, seems to me immeasurably inferior. It is
better balanced and squared, and more ponderous with
epithets, but the spirit and flavour and fragrance, the
knowledge and the genius, are all wanting. The one is
a house of brick, the other a quarry of jasper. It is
painful to observe in Coleridge, that with all the kindness

E 2

52 H1GHGATE.

and glorious far-seeing intelligence of his eye, there is a
glare in it, a light half-unearthly and morbid. It is the
glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner. His cheek too
shows a flush of over-exciteme'nt, the ridge of a storm-
cloud at sunset. "When he dies, another, and the
greatest of their race, will rejoin the fe«r immortals, the
ill-understood and ill-requited, who have walked this
earth." Had Coleridge ever a more genial visitant than
the farmer-looking, but eloquent and philanthropic
Chalmers, who in 1S39 came from -Scotland to Lon.
don, and of course clomb up Highgate Hill to pay
a visit to Coleridge, he says — " Half-an-hour with
Coleridge was filled up without intermission by one
continuous flow of eloquent discourse from that prince of
talkers. He began, in answer to the common inquiries
as to his health, by telling of a fit of insensibility in
which, three weeks before, he had lain for thirty-five
minutes. As sensibility returned, and before he had
opened his eyes, he uttered a sentence about the fugacious
nature of consciousness, from which he passed to a dis-
cussion of the singular relations between the soul and
the body. Asking for Mr. Irving, but waiting for no
reply, he poured out an eloquent tribute of his regard
mourning pathetically that such a man should be throw.]
ing himself away. Mr. Irving' s book on the ' Human
Nature of Christ ' in his analysis was minute to absur-
dity ; one would imagine that the pickling and preserving
were to follow, it was so like a cookery-book. Unfolding
then his own scheme of the Apocalypse — talking of the

HIGHGATE. 53

mighty contrast between its Christ and the Christ of the
Gospel narrative, Mr. Coleridge said that Jesus did not
come now as before, meek and gentle, healing the sick
and feeding the hungry, and dispensing blessing;; all
around ; but he came on a white horse, and who were
his attendants ? — Famine and 'War and Pestilence."

The poets have always been partial to Highgate.
"William and Mary Howitt live there at this day. Flo-
rence Nightingale has also there taken up her abode. The
German religious reformer, Ronge, lives at the foot of
Highgate Hill. Nicholas RowTe was educated there. It
was in one of the lanes leading to Highgate that Cole-
ridge met Keats and Hunt. "There is death in the
hand," said he to Hunt, as he shook hands with the
author of Endymion. Painters and artists have also been
partial to Highgate. George Morland would stay at the
Bull, an inn still existing, weeks at a time, and, we may
be sure, ran up very handsome scores. An incident that
occurred to Hogarth while at Highgate made an artist of
him. The tale is thus told by Walpole — " During his
apprenticeship he set out one Sunday with two or three
companions on an excursion to Highgate. The •weather
being very hot, they went into a public-house, where they
had not been long before a quarrel arose between some
persons in the same room ; one of the disputants struck
the other on the head with a quart pot and cut him very
much ; the blood running down the man's face, together
with the agony of the wound, which had distorted the
features into a most hideous grin, presented Hogarth,

54 HIGHGATE.

who showed himself thus early apprised of the mode
nature had intended he should pursue, with a subject too
laughable to be overlooked. He dre\v out his pencil,
and produced on the spot one of the most ludicrous figures
that was ever seen. "What rendered the piece the more
valuable was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the
man, with the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures
in caricature of the principal persons gathered around
him/' One of the names associated with Highgate I
find to be that of Hogarth's enemy, "Wilkes, patriot or
demagogue. In his Life I read, " Mr. Wilkes was of

O O *

the Established Church, but after he was married he
often went to Meeting. He lived in a splendid style, and
kept a very elegant and sumptuous table for his friends.
Among the numerous persons who visited this family
were Mr. Mead, an eminent drysalter on London Bridge,
with his wife and daughter, who, being also Dissenters,
frequently went to the Meeting-house in Southwood
Lane, Highgate, in Mr. "Wilkes's coach, which was always
drawn by six horses, such was his love of external
appearance." Going still further back, more renowned
characters appear on Highgate Hill. After the memor-
able battle of Bosworth Field, in which the usurper,
Richard, had been slain, it was at Highgate that the
victorious Richmond was met by the citizens of London
on his triumphal approach to the metropolis. " He was
met," writes Lambert, " by the Lord Mayor and Alder-
men in scarlet robes, with a great number of citizens on
horseback/' The Gunpowder Plot is also connected

HIGHGATE. 55

with this interesting locality. It is said, wliile that old
villain, Guy Fawkes, was preparing " to blow up king
and parliament, with Jehu and Powdire," the rest of the
conspirators had assembled on Highgate Hill to witness
the catastrophe ; indeed, a driver of the Barnet mail — I
fear not the best authority in the world on antiquarian
matters — went so far on one occasion as to point out to
the writer a bit of an old wall, a little beyond Marvel's
house on the same side of the way, as a part of the identical
house in which those very evil-disposed gentlemen met. A
subterraneous vray is also said to have existed from the
site of the present church to Cromwell House, and
thence to Islington. To me the story seems somewhat
doubtful, but the reader is at full liberty to believe it or
not as he likes. Let us now speak of the institutions of
Highgate : the most modern is the cemetery, which was
consecrated by the Lord Bishop of London in May,
1839, and has therefore the merit of being one of the
first, as it is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in
situation, of any near London. It contains about
twenty acres of ground on the side of the hill facing the
metropolis. The approach to it through Swain's Lane
conducts the visitor by a green lane rising gradually to
the Gothic building which forms the entrance. Entering
the grounds, the eye is struck by the taste everywhere
displayed. Broad gravel paths on either side wind up
the steep slope to the handsome new church of St.
Michael's, which is seen to great advantage from almost
every part of the grounds. An hour may be very well

56 HIGH GATE.

spent here musing on the dead. Good and bad, rogue
and honest man, saint and sinner, here sleep side by side.
John Sadleir, but too well known as M.P., and chairman
of the London and County Bank, is buried here. Indeed
all sects, and callings, and professions, have here their
representative men. General Otway has one of the
handsomest monuments in the grounds. One of the
most tasteful is that of Lillywhite, the cricketer, erected
by public subscription. "Wombwell, known and admired
in our childish days for his wonderful menagerie, reposes
under a massive lion. One grave has a marble pillar
bearing a horse all saddled and bridled. The inscription
under commemorates the death of a lady, and commences
thus,

" She's gone, whose nerve could guide the swiftest steed."
On inquiry we found the lady was the wife of a cele-
brated knacker, well skilled in the mysteries of horse-
flesh and the whip. Holman, the blind traveller, is
buried in Highgate Cemetery, and very near him are the
mortal remains of that prince of newspaper editors and
proprietors, Stephen Eintoul. On the other side the
cemetery is buried Bogue, the well-known publisher of
Fleet Street. In the Catacombs are interred Listen, the
greatest operator of his day, and Pierce Egan, a man as
famous in his way. It was only a few months since Sir W.
Charles Ross, the celebrated miniature painter, was buried
here. Frank Stone sleeps in the same cemetery, as also
does that well-remembered actress, Mrs. Warner. Haydn,
well-known for his ^Dictionary of Dates, and Gilbert a

UIGHGATE. 57

Beckett, still remembered for his comic powers, are
amongst the literary men that here a\vait the resurrec-
tion morn. A fairer place in which to sleep it would
be difficult to choose, in spite of the monstrous trophies
of affectation, or ostentation, or affection all round, — in
spite of the reminiscences of Cornhill and Cheapside,
suggested by every other grave. As a rule, you had
better pass by monuments unlocked at, they do but
enumerate the virtues of the illustrious obscure, and the
wealth of their survivors.

Of the past we now recall another relic, Lord Byron,
in ' ' Childe Harold," writes,

" Some o'er thy Thainis row the ribbon' d fair,
Others along the safer turnpike fly ;
Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,
And many to the steep of Highgate hie.
Ask ye, Boeotian shades ! the reason why ?
'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,
Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery,
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till morn."

In the note from whence the above extract is taken,
Lord Byron says he alludes to a ridiculous custom which
formerly prevailed in Highgate of administering a bur-
lesque oath to all travellers of the middling rank who
stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns
fastened, never to kiss the maid when he could the
mistress j never to eat brown bread when he could get
white ; never to drink small beer when he could get

58 HIGHGATE.

strong ; with many other injunctions of the kind, to all
which was added the saving clause, " unless you like it
best." Lambert tells us, " the oath formerly was ten-
dered' to every person stopping at any of the public-
houses of the village, which are very numerous, and
mostly distinguished by a large pair of horns placed
over the signs." I need not add, no horns are seen
now. When a person consented to be sworn, he laid
his hand on a pair of horns fixed to a long staff, and the
oath was administered. This ridiculous ceremony being
over, the juror was to kiss the horns and pay a shil-
ling for the oath, to be spent among the company to
which he or she belonged. To complete the incon-
gruous character of the ceremony, the father, for such
Avas the style of the person administering the oath,
officiated in a wig and gown, with the addition of a
mask. The origin of this custom is completely lost*
but it was so common at one time, that one man is said
to have sworn one hundred and fifty in a day. It ap-
pears to have been the fashion to make up parties to
Highgate for the purpose of taking the oath, and as a
prerequisite for admission to certain convivial societies
now no more, the freedom of Highgate was indis-
pensable. The father facetiously said if the son, as
the individual sworn was termed, was too poor to pay
for wine himself, lie was recommended to call for it at
the first inn, and to place it to his father's score, " and
now, my good son/' the formula continued, " I wish you
a safe journey through Highgate and this life." If the

HIGH GATE. 59

father's good wishes were realized, one is almost inclined
to regret that the ceremony exists no longer. Another
ancient institution is the grammar school, founded in
1562 by Sir Eoger Cholrneley, Lord Chief Baron of the
Exchequer, and after that Chief Justice of the King's
Bench.

But we must leave Highgate, now the retreat of the
wealthy citizen, and the great North Road, along which
coaches galloped almost every minute, and along which
lords and ladies posted, ere that frightful leveller, the
railroad had been formed. By the Favourite omnibuses
it is but a sixpenny ride to Highgate from the Bank,
but in the good old times, the fare by the stage was
half-a-crown. It would do aldermen good to go up its
hill, and the city clerk or shopman cannot frequent it
too much. Highgate has much the air of a provincial
town. It has its Literary Institution, and its police
office, and water-works, and gas, its seminaries for
ingenious youth of either sex, and its shops filled with
miscellaneous wares. The great city is creeping up
the hill, and seeking to encircle it with its chains of
brick, but it resists lustily, and with its quaint old
houses, and fine old trees, will not assume a cockney
appearance. I honour it for its obstinacy, and trust
that it will be long before it shall have the wicked,
busy, towny appearance of the Modern Babylon.

60

CHAPTER V.

t

TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND.

BARRY CORNWALL tells us that when he was a little boy
he was told that the streets of London were all paved
with gold; and it must be admitted that, to the youthful
mind in general, the metropolis is a sort of Tom Tiddler's
ground, where gold and silver are to be picked up in
handfuls any day. There is a good deal of exaggeration
in this, undoubtedly. To many, London is dark and
dismal as one of its own fogs, cold and stony as one of
its own streets. The Earl of Shaftesbury, a few years
back, calculated there were 30,000 ragged, houseless,
homeless children in our streets. The number of persons
who died last year in the streets of London, from want
of the necessaries of life, would shock a Christian. Last
year the total number of casual destitute paupers admitted
into the workhouses of the metropolitan districts amounted
to 53,221 males, 62,622 females, and 25,716 children.
We cannot wonder at this when we remember that it is
said 60,000 persons rise every morning utterly ignorant
as to the wherewithal to feed and maintain themselves

TOM TIDDLER'S GKOUND. Gl

for the day. Wonderful are the shifts, and efforts, and
ingenuities of this class. One summer- clay, a lady-friend
of the writer was driving in one of the pleasant green
lanes of Hornsey, when she saw a poor woman gathering
the broad leaves of the horse- chesmit. She asked her
why she did so. The reply was that she got a living by
selling them to the fruiterers in Covent Garden, who
lined the baskets with them in which they placed then-
choicest specimens. One day it came out in evidence at
a police-court, that a mother and her children earned a
scanty subsistence by rising early in the morning, or
rather late at night, and tearing down and selling as
wraste-paper, the broad sheets and placards with which
the dead walls and boardings of our metropolis abound.
The poor sick needlewomen, stitching for two-and-six-
pence a-week, indicate in some quarters how hard is the
London struggle for life. But one of the worst sights,
I think, is that of Avomen (a dozen may be seen at a
time), all black and grimy, sifting the cinders and rubbish
collected by the dustmen from various parts, a*nd shot
into one enormous heap.

The last dodge exposed for making money is amusing.
A writer in the Times wanted to know how it wras we see
advertisements in London papers for a million of postage-
stamps. A writer in reply says all the stories about
severe papas, who will not let their daughters marry
till they have papered a room with them, are false. He
says if the reader will go to some of the purlieus of the
Borough (leaving his wratch and purse at home) he will

62 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND.

very possibly be enlightened. He will be accosted by a
hook-nosed man, who will pull out a greasy pocket-book,
and produce some apparently new postage-stamps, not
all joined together, but each one separate, arid will offer
them for sale at about 3d. a dozen. If the enterprising
stranger looks very closely, indeed, into these stamps, he
may perhaps detect a slight join in the middle. They
are made by taking the halves which are unobliterated of
two old stamps and joining them, regumming the backs
and cleaning the faces. This practice is, it is said, carried
on to a great extent, in the low neighbourhoods of Rat-
cliff- highway, and the Borough.

During the year 1858 it appears 10,004 persons died
in the public institutions of London: 5,535 in the work-
houses, 57 in the prisons, and 4,41 2 in hospitals. Of the
latter number 317 belong to the Greenwich and the
Chelsea hospitals, 211 to the military and naval hospitals.
About one in six of the inhabitants of the metropolis dies
in the public institutions, nearly one in eleven dies in the
workhouses. Only think of tile population of London.
In 1857 that was estimated by the Registrar-General at
2,800,000; since then the population has gone on steadily
increasing, and it may be fairly estimated that the London
of to-day is more than equal to three Londons of 1801.
Now, amidst this teeming population, what thousands of
vicious, and rogues, and fools there must be ; what
thousands suddenly reduced from affluence to poverty ;
what thousands plunged into distress by sickness or the
loss of friends, and parents, and other benefactors ; to

TOM TIDDLEB/S GROUND. 63

such what a place of pain, and daily mortification, and
trial London must be !

But, on the other hand, from the time of "\Vhitting-
ton and his cat, London has abounded with instances
showing how, by industry and intelligence, and — let us
trust — honesty, the poorest may rise to the possession
of great wealth and honour. Indeed all the great city
houses abound with Examples. Poor lads have come up
to town, friendless and moneyless, have been sober and
steady, and firm against London allurements and vices,
have improved the abilities and opportunities God has
given them, and are now men of note and mark. The
late Lord Mayor was but an office-lad in the firm of
which he is now the head. Mr. Herbert Ingram, M.P.
for Boston, and proprietor of the Illustrated Neu-s,
blackened the shoes of one of his constituents. Mr. ,
Anderson, of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company,
and formerly M.P. for the Orkneys, rose in a similar
manner. Sir Peter Laurie was originally in a humble
position in life, so was Mr. Dillon, of the house of
Dillon and Co. Our great Lord Chancellor, when
employment was scarce and money ditto, held a
post as reporter and theatrical critic on the Mor;i-
iny Chronicle newspaper. Mr. Chaplin, the late Salis-
bury M.P., was an extraordinary instance of a man rising
from the humblest rank. Before railways were in opera-
tion Mr. Chaplin had succeeded in making himself one
of the largest coach proprietors in the kingdom. His
establishment, from small beginnings, grew till, just

64 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND.

before the opening of the London and North Western
line, he was proprietor of sixty-four stage-coaches,
worked by fifteen hundred horses, and giving yearly
returns of more than half a million sterling. Mr.
Cob den began life in a very subordinate position in a
London warehouse. Sir William Cubitt when a lad
worked at his father's flour-mill. Michael Faraday, Eng-
land's most eminent chemist, was the son of a poor
blacksmith. Sir Samuel Morton Peto worked for seven
years as a carpenter, bricklayer, and mason, under his
uncle, Mr. Henry Peto. The well-known Mr. Lindsay,
M.P. for Sunderland, was a cabin boy. The editor of
one morning paper rose quite from the ranks, and
the editor of another well known journal used to
be an errand-boy in the office before, by gigantic in-
dustry and perseverance, he attained his present high
position. Mr. J. Fox, the eloquent M.P. for Oldham,
and the " Publicola " of the Weekly Dispatch, worked
in a Norwich factory. The great warehouses in Cheap-
side and Cannon-street, and elsewhere, are owned by men
who mostly began life without a rap. Go to the beau-
tiful villas at Norwood, at Highgate, at Richmond, and
ask who lives there, and you will find that they are
inhabited by men whose wealth is enormous, and whose
career has been a marvellous success. Fortunes in
London are made by trifles. I know a man who keeps
a knacker's yard, who lives out of town in a villa of ex-
quisite beauty, and who drives horses which a ^prince
might envy. Out of the profits of his vegetable pills

TIDDLER'S GKOUXD. 65

Morrison bought himself a nice estate. Mrs. Holloway
drives one of the handsomest carriages yon shall meet in
the Strand. Sawyer and Strange, who the other day were
respectable young men unknown to fame, paid the
Crystal Palace Company upwards of £12,000, as per
contract, for the liberty to supply refreshments for a few
months. In the city there, at this time, may be seen
the proprietor of a dining-room, who drives a handsome
mail-phaeton and pair daily to town in the morning to
do business, and back at night. Thackeray has a
tale of a gentleman who married a young lady, drove
his cab, and lived altogether in great style. The gen-
tleman was very silent as to his occupation ; he would
not even communicate the secret to his wife. All that
she knew was what was patent to all his neighbours —
that he went in his Brougham in the morning, and
returned at night. Even the mother-in-law, prying as
she was, was unable to solve the mystery. At length,
one day the unfortunate wife, going with her dear
mamma into the city, in the person of a street sweeper
clothed in rags, and covered with dirt, she recognised
her lord and master, who decamped and was never
heard of more. The story is comic, but not improba-
ble, for London is so full of wealth, you have only to
take your place, and it seems as if some of the golden
shower must fall into your mouth. Mr. Thwaites, when
examined before the Parliamentary Committee on the
Embankment of the Thames, said, " The metropolis con-
tributes very largely to the taxation of the country.

F

66 TOU TIDDLER'S GROUND.

The value of the property assessed under Schedule A, is
£22,385,350, whilst the sum for the rest of the king-
dom is £127,994,288; under Schedule D the metropolis
shows £37,871,644, against £86,077,676. The gross
estimated rental of the property of the metropolis assessed
to the poor rates is £16,157,320, against £86,077,676
from the rest of the kingdom." The speculations on the
Stock Exchange embrace a national debt of 800 millions,
railway shares to the extent of 300 millions, besides
foreign stock, foreign railway shares, and miscellaneous
investments of all kinds. Land has been sold in the
neighbourhood of the Exchange and the Bank at the
rate of a million pounds an acre. The rateable value
of the property assessed to the poor rates in the districts
of the metropolis in 1857 amounted to £11,167,678. A
Parliamentary Return shows that the total ordinary
receipts of the Corporation of the city for the year 1857
amounted to £905,298, the largest item being the coal
duty, £64,238. The London omnibuses pay govern-
ment a duty of no less than £70,200 a year. The
Thames even, dirty and stinking as it is, is full of gold.
One fact will place its commercial value in the clearest
light. In 1856 the Customs' duties entered as collected
from all parts of the United Kingdom were £19,813,622,
and of this large sum considerably more than half was col-
lected in the port of London, — the Customs' duties paid in
the port of London alone being £12,287,591, a much
larger sum than paid by all the remaining ports of the
United Kingdom put together. No wonder that the-

TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 67

Londoners are proud of the Thames. Why, even the
very mudlarks — the boys who prowl in its mud on
behalf of treasure-trove — earn, it is said, as much as
£2,000 to £3,000 by that miserable employment in the
course of a year.

But we stop. The magnitude of London wealth
and even crime can never be fully estimated. It is a
boundless ocean, in which the brave, sturdy, steady
swimmer — while the weak are borne away rapidly to
destruction — may pick up precious pearls.

68

CHAPTER VI.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

ON Monday, Jan. 9, 1860, we formed part of a crowd
who had assembled in the Poet's Corner, Westminster
Abbey, to view the burial of the only man of our gene-
ration who, by means of his literary and oratorical efforts,
has won for his brow a coronet. Of Babington Macaulay,
as essayist, poet, orator, historian, statesman, we need
not speak. "What he was, and what he did, are patent
to all the world. Born in 1800, the son of Zachary
Macaulay, one of the brilliant band of anti-slavery
agitators of which Mr. Wilberforce was the head, young
Babington commenced life under favourable circum-
stances. At Trinity College, Cambridge, where he
was educated, the world first heard of his wondrous
talent. In 1830 he was returned by Lord Lansdowne
for his borough of Calne; the Reform agitation was
then at its height, and how bitterly, and fiercely, and
eloquently Macaulay spoke we remember at this day.
Then, in 1834, commenced his Indian exile, at the end
of which he returned to Parliament with a competency.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 69

His Essays in the Edinburgh Review and his History
were the chief business of his life. He might have shone
as a poet had he not betaken himself to prose ; but in
this department he remained unrivalled, and the result
was riches and fame. On one occasion, it is said, his
publisher gave him a cheque for £20,000, and he was
made by the Whigs a peer. His burial at Westminster
Abbey, at the foot of Addison, was a fitting climax to
his career of wondrous achievement and gorgeous success.
Men most distinguished in literature — in science — in
law — in statesmanship — in divinity — in rank — were
present. The funeral was not as touching as might
have been expected. It may be that the choral service
itself interferes with the inner feeling of sadness the
death of such a man arouses in every mind ; it may be
that the human voice is inadequate to express the power,
and pathos, and majesty of the form of words used on
such occasions ; and it is certain that the many ladies
present were dressed in the most unbefitting costumes,
and that ribbons, and bonnets, and dresses of all the
colours of the rainbow were quite out of keeping with
the place and the occasion. The saddest sight, the one
most suggestive of deep feeling, was that of one or two
ladies, high up in a recess above the grave. They were
real mourners. Indeed, it was said one of them was the
sister of the deceased peer. Lord John Eussell also
exhibited an emotion for which the general public will
scarce give him credit. At the grave he was so much
overcome, that it seemed as if he would have fallen had

70 WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

not the Duke of Argyle held him up. Well might his
Lordship be moved to tears. Could he keep from
thinking, while standing there, how soon his own turn
would come, and how well and worthily he, who slept
the sleep of death in the plain coffin at his feet, had
fought the battle of the Whigs in their palmy days ?
We looked back, as we stood there, to other days. We
saw a theatre in Gower Street filled with intelligent
youths. A winter session had been closed : all its work
and competition were over ; to the successful candidates
prizes were to be awarded. The fathers and mothers,
the friends and sisters of such had come together from
far and near. Seated in a chair was a stout, mild, genial
man, with face somewhat pale, and hair scant and
inclined to grey. He rose, and was received with
rapturous applause; he spoke in plain language — with
little action, with a voice rather inclined to be harsh —
of the bright future which rises before the rapt eye of
youth. He spoke — and as he did so, as he mounted
from one climax to another, every young heart filled and
warmed with the speaker's theme. That was Macaulay,
just erne from India, with an honourable competence,
to consummate the fame as a man he had acquired in
younger years. Again, we thought of that last speech
in the House of Commons, when, at an early hour on a
beautiful summer evening, the Parks, and Clubs, and
Rotten Row had been deserted, for it had gone forth to
the world that Macaulay was about to speak. Poor
Joseph Hume had moved the adjournment of the debate

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 71

and, as a matter of right, was in possession of the House;
but the calls for Macaulay on all sides were so numerous,
that even that most good-natured of men, as Hume was,
grew a little angry and remonstrated ; but it was in vain
that he sought the attention of the House: all were
anxious for the next speaker, and no sooner had Hume
sat down than Macaulay delivered, in his hurried feverish
way,, one of those speeches which not merely delight, but
which influence men's votes and opinions, and may be
read with delight when the occasion which gave rise to
them has long since passed away. We have heard much
in favour of competition in the civil service, at home
and in India, since then, but never was the argument
more clearly put — more copiously illustrated, more
clothed hi grace and beauty ; and then came a few short
years of infirmity of body, of labour with the pen, and
sudden death, and the burial at "Westminster Abbey.
Out of the thousands standing by the grave, few could
ever expect to see the career of such another genius.
He is gone, and we may not hope to see his work
finished. In vain we call up him —

" Who left untold,
The story of Cambuscan bold."

Since then another public funeral has taken place in
Wesminster Abbey ; only the other day we saw deposited
there the ashes of Sir Charles Barry, and here, as year
by year passes over our heads, richer, and dearer, and
wider are the associations which cluster around that
venerable pile. I don't envy the man who can point a

72 "WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

sneer at Westminster Abbey ; how placid and beautiful
is the outside, how eloquently it speaks to the ambitious,
lawyer, the busy merchant, the statesman bent on fame,
the beauty armed for conquest; what a testimony it
bears to the religious spirit of the age which witnessed"
its erection, and of the brain or brains which conceived
its magnificent design.

The Abbey is open to public inspection between the
hours of eleven and tliree daily, and also in the summer
months between four and six in the afternoon. The
public are not admitted to view the monuments on
Good Friday, Christmas Day, or fast days, or during
the hours of Divine Service. The nave, transept, and
cloisters are entirely free. The charge for admission to
the rest of the Abbey, through which you are accom-
panied by a guide, is sixpence each person. The
entrance is at the south transept, better known as
Poet's Corner. It will do you good to walk in there
any Sunday during Divine Service. The appearance of
the place is singularly striking. The white-robed
choristers ; the benches filled with well-dressed people ;
the dark religious columns; the lofty and fretted roof;
the marble monuments and busts looking down on you
from every wall and corner ; the gleams of mellow sun-
light streaming in from richly painted windows — all tend
to produce an effect such as you can find nowhere else
— an effect of which you must be sensible if you care
not for the rich notes of the organ, or sleep while the
parson preaches.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 73

The Abbey, originally a Benedictine monastery —
the Minster west of St. Paul's London — was founded
originally in what was called Thorney Island, by Sebert,
King of the East Saxons, 616. The patron Saint,
Peter himself, is said to have consecrated it by night,
and in a most miraculous manner. Till the time of Ed-
ward the Confessor the Abbey does not seem to have made
much way ; but the meek-minded Prince was led to give
the Abbey a patronage which led to the building becom-
ing what it is. It seems the Prince had been ill, and
vowed to take a journey to the Holy Land if he should
recover. But, as often is the case with vows made in
sickness, the Prince, when well, found it exceedingly
inconvenient to fulfil his vow. The only course left
for him was to appeal to the Pope. The Holy Father,
of course, was appealed to, and freed the pious king
from his vow on one condition — that he should spend
the money that the journey would have cost him in
some religious building. The Prince, too happy to be
freed from the consequences of this foolish vow, gladly
promised to do so ; and, whilst he was considering as to
what building he should favour Avith his royal patronage,.
one of the monks of Westminster — rather an artful
man, we imagine — was reported to have had a wonder-
ful dream, in which no less a personage than St. Peter
himself appeared to him, and charged him to take a
message to the King, to the effect that his celestial
saintship hoped he would not overlook the claims of
Westminster. Of course, to so pious a prince as Ed-

74 WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

ward, the saintly wisli was law ; and on Westminster
were lavished the most princely sums. Succeeding
kings followed in the same steps. Henry III. and
his son, Edward L, rebuilt it nearly as we see it now.
It is difficult to say what the building must have
cost its royal patrons. In our own time, its repairs have
amounted to an enormous sum.

As the last resting place of the great, Westminster
Abbey must always be dear to Englishmen. It was a
peerage or Westminster Abbey that urged Nelson on. Old
Godfrey Kneller did not rate the honour of lying in
Westminster Abbey quite so highly. " By God,"
exclaimed the old painter, "I will not be buried in
Westminster ! They do bury fools there." It is
difficult to say on what principle the burials there take
place. "Byron's monument was refused, though Thor-
waldsen was the sculptor ; and yet Prior has a staring
one to himself — that Prior whose Chloe was an alehouse
drab, and who was as far inferior to Byron in genius as a
farthing rushlight to the morning star.

Another evil, to which public attention should be
drawn, is the expense attending a funeral there. When
Tom Campbell (would that he were alive to write war
lyrics now !) was buried, the fees to the Dean and
Chapter amounted to somewhere between five and six
hundred pounds. Surely it ought not to be so. The
Dean and Chapter are well paid enough as it is.

If, reader, pausing on the hallowed ground, you feel
inclined to think of the past, remember that beneath you

WESTMINSTEE ABBEY. 75

sleep many English statesmen, — Clarendon, the great
Lord Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning ; that there

"The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier."

Eemember that —

"Bacon there

Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham, eloquence to marble life ; "

that of poets; Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Dry den,
Congreve, Addison, Sheridan, and Campbell, and others,
there await the sound of the last trumpet ; that old Sam
Johnson there finds rest ; that there the brain of a New-
ton has crumbled into dust ; and, as if to shew that all
distinctions are levelled by death, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs.
Bracegirdk', and other favourites of the stage, are buried
there. As a burial place Westminster Abbey resembles
the world. We jostle one another precisely so in real life.
" The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant
comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe."

76

CHAPTER VII.

LONDON CHARITIES.

WHEN Guizot visited London the principal thing that
struck him was the nature and the extent of London
Charities. Undoubtedly the English are a more charita-
ble people than the French. When the ruinously low
prices of the Funds forbade a loan, the loyalty-loan brought
forth the name of a Lancashire cotton-spinner, the father
of the lamented statesman, Sir Robert Peel, who sub-
scribed £60,000; and when George the Third sent the
Minister Pitt to compliment him on this truly loyal and
patriotic subscription, he simply replied that another
£60,000 would be forthcoming if it was wanted for the
defence of the country. Did Napoleon, or any French
monarch, ever possess such a patriotic subject? The
spirit is still the same. What sums the nation sub-
scribed for the relief of the wives and widows and
orphans of the Crimean heroes. What an amount was
raised at once for the victims of the Indian mutiny.
An Englishman likes to make money, and makes many
a sacrifice to do it ; but then how lavishly and with what

LONDON CHARITIES. 77

a princely hand lie gives it. And in tins respect the
Londoner is a thorough Englishman — his charity covers
a multitude of sins. I am aware some of this charity is
of a doubtful character. A draper, for instance, may
subscribe to the funds — of such an institution as that for
early closing — a very handsome sum, merely as a good
business advertisement ; other tradesmen may and un-
doubtedly do the same. There is also a spirit of rivalry
in these matters — if Smith saw Jones' name down for
£50, he, thinking he was as good as Smith any day, and
perhaps a good deal better, puts his name down for
£100. Somehow or other we can scarce do good things
without introducing a little of the alloy of poor
human nature ; but London charities undoubtedly cover
a multitude of sins.

Associations for the voluntary relief of distress, the
reclamation of the criminal, and diffusion of Christian
truth, are a noble characteristic of the English people.
There is no city in the world possessing an equal number
of charitable institutions to those of the British capital.
Taking the whole of London, and not exempting, from
their distance, such as may be correctly classed as metro-
politan institutions, as Greenwich Hospital, &c., we find
there are no less than 526 charitable institutions, ex-
clusive of mere local endowments and trusts, parochial
and local schools, &c.

According to Mr. Low, the charities comprise—

12 General medical hospitals.

50 Medical charities for special purposes.

78 LONDON CHARITIES.

35 General dispensaries.

1 2 Societies and institutions for the preservation of life and
public morals.

18 Societies for reclaiming the fallen, and staying the pro-
gress of crime.

14 Societies for the relief of general destitution and distress.

35 Societies in connection with the Committee of the Re-
formatory and Hefuge Unions.

12 Societies for relief of specific description.

14 Societies for aiding the resources of the industrious (ex-
clusive of loan funds and savings' banks).

11 Societies for the deaf and dumb, and the blind.
103 Colleges, hospitals, and institutions of alinhouses for the
aged.

16 Charitable pension societies.

74 Charitable and provident societies, chiefly for specified
classes.

31 Asylums for orphan and other necessitous children.

10 Educational foundations.
4 Charitable modern ditto.

-40 School societies, religious books, Church aiding and
Christian visiting societies.

35 Bible and missionary societies.

526 (This includes parent societies only, and is quite exclu-
sive of the numerous " auxiliaries," &c.)

These charities annually disburse in aid of their re-
spective objects the extraordinary amount of £1,764,733,
of which upwards of £1,000,000 is raised annually by
voluntary contributions ; the remainder from funded
property, sale of publications, &c.

The facility with \vhich money can be raised in Lon-

LONDON CHAIUTIE*. 79

don for charitable purposes is very astonishing. A short
time back it was announced that the London Hospital
had lost about £1,500 a year by the falling in of annui-
ties. It was, therefore, necessary, if the Jlospital was to
continue its charities to the same extent as heretofore,,
that additional funds should be raised. In an incredibly
short space of .time £2-1,000 were collected. The Times
makes an appeal about Christmas time for the refuges of
the destitute in the metropolis, and generally it raises
somewhere about £10,000 — a nice addition to the re-
gular income of the societies. The Bishop of London,
since he has been connected with his diocese, has conse-
crated 29 new churches, accommodating 90,000 persons,
erected by voluntary subscription?. TTe may depend
upon it the various sects of dissenters are equally active
in their way. During last year the Field Lane Refuge
supplied 30,302 lodgings to 6,785 men and boys, who
received 101,193 either six or eight ounce loaves of
bread. At the same time 840 women were admitted
during the year, to whom were supplied 10,028 lodg-
ings, averaging 11 nights shelter to each person, by
whom 14,755 loaves were consumed. On the whole it
appears that 10,000 persons annually participate in the
advantages of this institution, and 1,222 of the most
forlorn and wretched creatures in London were taken
from the streets and placed in a position where they
inight earn their own bread, and all this at the cost of
3s. 6d. each per annum. In 1851 the original Shoeblack
Society sent five boys into the street to get an honest

80 LONDON CHARITIES.

living by cleaning boots rather than by picking and
stealing, and now their number is about 350. Mr. May-
hew calculates the London charities at three millions
and a half per annum. In estimating London chari-
ties we must not be unmindful of those required
by law. According to a return published a couple
of years since, I find, in the districts of the metropolis,
the average amount expended for the relief of the
poor was Is. 6fd. in the pound. The total num-
ber of casual destitute paupers admitted into the-
workhouses of the metropolitan districts during the
year amounted to 53,221 males, 62,622 females, and
25,716 children. The quantity of food supplied to
these paupers varies much in the several districts, as also
the nature of the work required. In some cases no work
at all is exacted from the casual poor, but where it is, the
demand appears to be chiefly for picking oakum and break-
ing stones. In some cases the dietary includes bread and
cheese, with gruel, and sometimes even the luxury of
butter is added. In other cases bread and water (very
meagre fare, and insufficient to support life for any
length of time), are all that is allowed. Women suckling-
infants are supplied tea, broth, or gruel in lieu of water ;
we can scarce wonder the poor prefer going to jail.
I have seen in jails, and convict establishments, dinners
better served than are earned even by many of the
industrious poor. I find during the last year the 339
agents of the London City Mission had paid 1,528,162
visits during the year; 117,443 of these visits being

LONDON CHARITIES. 81

to the sick and dying. By their means a large number
of Bibles and Tracts had been distributed, 11,200
children had been sent to school, and 580 fallen females
restored to virtue. At the annual meeting of the
Ragged School Union it was stated that in 170 Ragged
School institutions, there were 199 Sunday Schools,
with 24,860 scholars; 146 day schools with 15,380
scholars, and 215 evening schools, with 9,050 scholars :
of teachers 400 were paid, and 9,690 were voluntary.
There were fifteen refuges in which 600 inmates were
fed, lodged, clothed, and educated. The midnight
meeting movement, of which we have heard so much,
and respecting which opinions so much differ,
according to its report, has been very successful;
through the instrumentality of the committee seven
meetings had been called; 1700 women had been
addressed; 7500 scriptural cards and books had been
circulated; and 107 had been reclaimed and placed in
homes, through the agency of which, they would, it was
hoped, be restored to society. In addition to these five
had been restored to their friends, one to her husband,
two placed in situations, and one had been married.
In the general charities of England London has its
share. It not merely takes the initiative but it
subscribes by far the larger part. When the Crimean
war broke out a fund was raised for the wives and
families of the soldiers engaged in it, amounting to
£121,139; £260,000 were subscribed for the relief of
the victims of the Indian mutiny. Well it was in

G

82 LONDON CHAEITIES.

London that the most liberal donations were made.
Again, look at the Religious Societies. In last year
the income of the Church Missionary Society was
£163,629. Is. 4d.; of the Bible Society £162,020.
13s. 5d. Of the Wesleyan Missionary Society,
£141,000. 5s. lid. Of the London Missionary So-
ciety, £93,000. Thus gigantic and all-persuading are
the charities of London. The almshouses erected by
private individuals or public subscriptions are too
numerous to be described, except we refer to the London
Almshouses erected at Brixtoii to commemorate the
passing of the Reform Bill; nor would I forget the
Charter House with its jovial and grateful chorus : —

" Then blessed be the memory

Of good old Thomas Suttou,
Who gave us lodging, learning,
And he gave us beef and mutton."

Nor Christ's Hospital, with its annual income of
£50,000; nor the Foundling Hospital, with its 500
children; nor Alleyn's magnificent gift of Dulwich;
nor the Bethlehem Hospital, with its income of nearly
£30,000 a year ; nor the Magdalene. But we must say
a few words about the Hospitals; of the more than
500 Charitable Institutions of, the metropolis, one
quarter consists of general medical hospitals, medical
charities for special purposes, dispensaries, Sec. In
1859, in Bartholeuiew's, I find there were patients
admitted, cured, and discharged, 5,865 in, 86,480 out;

LONDON CHARITIES. 83

in St. Thomas's 4,114 in, 44,744 out; the Charing
Cross Hospital has, I believe, on an average 1,000 in-
patients, 17,000 out. Guy's, with its annual income
of £30,000, has an entire average of in and out-
patients of 50,000. But we stop, the list is not
exhausted, but we fear the patience of the reader is.

CHAPTER VIII.
PEDESTRIANISM.

I AM a great advocate of Pedestrianism, and take it to-
be a very honest way of getting through the world. If
you ride in a carriage you may be upset ; if you throw
your leg across a horse's back you may meet with the
fate of Sir Robert Peel ; and as to getting into a railway
carriage, the fearful consequences of that require for
their description a more vigorous pen than mine. I
like to see a good walker ; how delightful his appetite,
how firm his muscle, how healthy his cheek, how splen-
did his condition. Has he a care, he walks it off; is
ruin staring him in the face, only let him have a couple
of hour's walk, and he is in a condition to meet the great
enemy of mankind himself. Has his friend betrayed
him — are his hopes of fame, of wealth, of power blighted?
— is his love's young dream rudely broken ? Let him
away from the circles of men out on the green turf, with
the blue sky of heaven above, and in a very little while
the agony is over, and " Richard's himself again." Were
it only for the sake of the active exercise it inculcates

PEDESTEIANISM. 85

•and requires I would say — Long live the Rifle Corps
movement. The other day a gallant little band in my
own immediate neighbourhood set out for an evening's
march. They were in capital spirits ; they were dressed
in their Sunday best ; they had a band playing at their
head ; a miscellaneous crowd, chiefly juvenile, with a few
occasional females behind, brought up the rear. A de-
puty of the London Corporation and his brother formed
part of the devoted troop. Gaily and amidst cheers
they marched from the bosoms of their families, leaving
" their girls behind them." On they went, up-hill and
down-hill, many a mile, amidst Hornsey's pleasant green
lanes, till at length the London deputy turned pale,
and intimated — while his limbs appeared to sink beneath
him, and his whole body was bathed in sweat — that he
could stand it no longer. The spirit was willing, but
the flesh was weak. A halt was ordered — beer was
sought for for the London deputy, and with considerable
difficulty they got the martial hero home. Had that
gallant man been a good pedestrian, would he not have
scorned the beer, and laughed at the idea of rest?
Look at Charles Dickens — I am sure he will forgive me
the personality, as no harm is intended — why is he ever
genial, ever fresh — as superior to the crowd who imitate
his mannerism, but fail to catch his warm, sunny, human
spirit, as the Koh-i-noor to its glass counterfeit, but
because no man in town walks more than he ? What a
man for walking was the great Liston, foremost operator
•of his age. The late Lord Suffield, who fought all

85 PEDESTRIAXISM.

the Lords, including the bench of Bishops, in order to
win emancipation for the slave, was one of the most
athletic men of his day. On one occasion he ran a
distance of ten miles before the Norwich mail as a casual '
frolic, without any previous training, and he assured Sir
George Stephen that he never experienced any incon-
venience from it. When we talk of a man being weak
on his pins, what does it imply but that he has been a
rake, or a sot, or a fool who has cultivated the pocket or
the brain at the expense of that machine, so fearfully and
wonderfully made, we call man. The machine is made
to wear well, it is man's fault if it does not. The pedes-
trian alone keeps his in good repair; our long livers
have mostly been great walkers. Taylor, the water-
poet, says of old Parr —

" Good wholesome labour was his exercise,
Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise,
In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day,
And to his team he whistled time away."

People are getting more fond of physical exercise
than they were. We may almost ask — Are we re-
turned back to the days of the Hiad and the Odyssey ?
The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange greet Tom
Sayers as if he were an emperor, and, it is said, peers
and clergymen think it right to assist at a "mill."
We have heard so much about muscular Christianity —
so much stress has been laid upon the adjective — that
we seem in danger of forgetting the Christianity alto-
gether. Undoubtedly our fathers are to blame in some

PEDESTEIAKIS1I. 87

respect for this. Good Christians, thinking more of the
next world than of this, merchants, and tradesmen, and
even poor clerks, hastening to be rich, scholars aiming at
fame, and mothers of a frugal turn, have set themselves
against out-door life and out-door fun, and have done
with sports and pastimes — as Rowland Hill said the
pious had done with the tunes — i.e. let the devil have all
the good ones. In vain you war with nature, she will
have her revenge ; the heart is true to its old instincts.
Man is what he was when the Greek pitched his tent
by the side of the much-sounding sea, and before the
Avails of Troy ; when Alexander sighed for fresh worlds
to conquer ; when the young Hannibal vowed deathless
hate to Rome ; when the rude ballad of " Chevy Chase,"
sung in baronial hall, stirred men as if it were the sound
of a trumpet ; when Nelson swept the seas, and when
Wellington shattered the mighty hosts of France. Thus
is it old physical sports and pastimes never die, and
perhaps nowhere are they more encouraged and practised
than by the population of our cities and towns.

The other day some considerable interest was excited
in the peculiar circles given to the study of Bell's Life,
by the fact that Jem Pudney was to run Jem Rowan for
£50 a-side, at the White Lion, Hackney Wick. The
winner was to have the Champion's Cup. Tar and near
had sounded and resounded the name of Pudney the
swift-footed — how he had distanced all his competitors —
how he had done eleven miles under the hour — were
facts patent to all sporting England ; but against him

88 PEDESTBIANISM.

was this melancholy reality, that he was getting old —
he was verging on thirty-two. However, when, after a
weary pilgrimage through mud, and sleet, and rain, we
found ourselves arrived at the classic spot. The betting
was very much in Pudney*s favour. The race was to
have commenced at five, but it did not begin before
six. We had plenty of time to look around. Outside
we had passed a motley multitude. There were cabs, and
Hansoms, and Whitechapel dog-carts in abundance.
Monday is an off-day as regards many of the operatives
and mechanics of London, and they were thronging
round the door, or clambering up the pales, or peeping
through the boards, or climbing some neighbouring
height, , to command a view of the race on strictly
economical principles. Several owners of horses and
carts, with their wives and families, were indulging in a
similar amusement; an admission fee of one shilling
enabled us to penetrate the enclosure. We pay our
money and enter. The scene is not an inviting one.
Perhaps there are about a thousand of us present, and
most of us are of a class of society we may denominate
rough and ready. Even the people who have good
clothes do not look like gentlemen. They have very
short hair, very flat and dark faces ; have a tremendous
development of the lower jaw, and, while they are un-
naturally broad about the chest, seem unnaturally thin
and weak as regards their lower extremities. Most of
the younger ones are in good sporting condition, and
would be very little distressed by a little set-to, whether

PEDESTRIANISM. 89

of a playful or a business nature, and could bear an
a:nount of punishment which would be fatal to the writer
of tin's article, and, I dare say, to the reader as well.
Time passes slowly. Jones hails Brown, and offers him
seven to four. (After the race had terminated, I saw
Jones cash up a £100 fresh bank-note, which I thought
might have been more usefully invested.) Robinson bets
Smith what he likes that he does not name the winner ;
and one gent, with an unpleasing expression of counte-
nance, offers to do a little business with me, which I de-
cline, for reasons that I am not particularly desirous to
communicate to my new acquaintance. I arn glad to
see a policeman or two present, for one likes to know
the protection of the law may be invoked in an extre-
mity, and I keep near its manifest and outward sign.
The White Lion is doing a fine business ; there is an
active demand for beer and tobacco ; and a gentleman
who deals in fried fish soon clears off his little stock of
delicacies, as likewise does a peripatetic vendor of sand-
wiches of a mysterious origin. The heroes of the night
slowly walk up and down the course, wearing long great
coats, beneath which we may see their naked legs, and
feet encased in light laced shoes. Their backers are with
them, and a crowd watches with curious eyes. At
length the course is cleared, a bell is rung, and they are
off. Six times round the course is a mile — six times ten
are sixty. Sixty times must they pass and repass that
excited mob. The favourite takes the lead at a steady
running ; he maintains it some time ; he is longer than

90 PEDESTRIANISM.

his opponent, but the latter is younger, and looks more
muscular in his thighs. Both men, with the exception
of a cloth round the loins, are naked as when born ; and
as they run they scatter the mud, which mud thus
scattered deicends upon them in a by no means refreshing
shower. As round after round is run the excitement
deepens ; the favourite is greeted with cheers : but when
at the end of the third mile he is passed by his com-
petitor excites an enthusiasm which is intense. Now
the bettors tremble ; the favourite attempts to get his
old position ; he gains on his foe — they are now neck
and neck — cheer, boys, cheer — "Go it, Jem! "is the
cry on many sides. Jem the winner does go it; but,
alas ! Jem the loser cannot. It is in vain he seeks the
lead. Fortune has declared against him, and in a little
while he gives up — no longer the swiftest and fleetest of
England's sons — no longer the holder of the Champion's
Cup. One involuntarily feels for fallen greatness, and
as Pudney was led away utterly beaten, I could not find
it in my heart to rejoice. I left a crowd still on the
grounds. I left Rowan still running, as he was bound
to do, till he had completed his ten miles : and I left
the White Lion, in-doors and out, doing a very con-
siderable business. It seemed to me the White Lion
was not such a fool as he looked, and that he felt, let
who will win or lose, he with his beer and brandy would
not come off second best. This, undoubtedly, was the
worst part of the business. The race over, for further
excitement, the multitude would rush to the White Lion

PEDESTRIANISM. 91

— the losers to drown their sorrow, the winners to spend
their gains; the many, who were neither winners nor
losers, merely because others did so ; and thus, as the
hours pass, would come intoxication, anger, follies, and,
perhaps, bitterness of heart for life.

May I here enumerate the heroes of pedestrianism ?
Let me name Robert Skipper, who walked a thousand
miles in a thousand successive half-hours — let me not
forget Captain Barclay, who walked a thousand miles in
a thousand successive hours — let me record the fame of
Captain John T. G. Campbell, of the 91st, who, ac-
coutred in the heavy marching order of a private soldier,
on the Mallow and Fermoy road, did ten miles in 107^
minutes. All honour be to such ! long may their me-
mories be green ! Let me beg the considerate reader
not to forget West, who ran forty miles in five hours
and a half. Ten miles an hour is done by all the best
runners. It is said West accomplished 100 miles in 18
hours. I read in a certain work devoted to manly ex-
ercises, " at the rate of four miles an hour a man may
walk any length of time." The writer begs to inform
the reader that he doubts this very much.

92

CHAPTER IX.
OVER LONDON BRIDGE.

MR. Commissioner Harvey is particularly fond of figures.
The other day he caused an account to be taken of the
number of persons entering the city within a given
period. The result shows that the amazing number of
706,621 individuals passed into the city by various
entrances during the 24 hours tested ; and as the day
selected, we are told, was free from any extraordinary
attraction to the city, there can be no doubt that the
return furnishes a fair estimate of the average daily influx.
Of this large number it appears only one-fourteenth, or
49,242, entered the city in the night — that is, between
the hours of 11 p m. and 7 a.m. Now this enormous
population in very large numbers patronises London
Bridge for many reasons — the principle argument witli
them in its favour undoubtedly is, that it is the shortest
way from their homes to their places of business, or vice
versa. Last year, for instance, the North London Rail-
way carried nearly six millions of passengers ; the Lon-
don and South Western more than four millions; the

OVEE LONDON BRIDGE. 93

Blackwall nearly five millions; while 13,500,000 pas-
sengers passed through the London Bridge Station.
Mr. Commissioner Harvey, however, makes the importance
of London Bridge still clearer. On the 17th of March
last year he had a man engaged in taking notes of the
traffic, and he furnished Mr. Commissioner Harvey with
the following figures : — In the course of the twenty-four
hours it appears 4,483 cabs, 4,286 omnibuses, 9,245
wagons and carts, 2,430 other vehicles, and 54 horses
led or ridden, making a total of 20,498, passed over
the bridge. The passengers in the same period were, in
vehicles 60,836, on foot 107,074 ; total, 167,910. As
we may suppose this traffic is an increasing one. The
traffic across the old bridge in one July day, 1811, was
as follows: — 89,640 persons on foot, 769 wagons, 2,924
carts and drays, 1,240 coaches, 485 gigs and taxed carts,
and 764 horses. We must recollect that in 1811 the
bridges across the Thames were fewer. There was then
no Waterloo Bridge, no Hungerford Suspension Bridge,
no bridge at Southwark, no penny steamboats running
every quarter of an hour from Paul's Wharf to the
Surrey side, and London Bridge was far more impor-
tant than now. The figures we have given also throw
some light on the manners and customs of the age.
Where are the gigs now, then the attribute of respect-
ability ? What has become of the 1,240 coaches, and.
what a falling off of equestrianism — the 764 horses of
1811 have dwindled down (in 1859) to the paltry num-
ber of 54. Are there no night equestrians in London

94 OVEU LONDON BRIDGE.

now. It is early morn and we stand on London Bridge,
green are the distant Surrey hills, clear the blue sky,
stately the public buildings far and near. Beneath
us what fleets in a few hours about to sail, with
passengers and merchandize to almost every continental
port. Surely Wordsworth's Ode written on Westminster
Bridge is not inapplicable : —

" Earth has not anything to show more fair.
Dull would he be of sense who could pass by,
A sight so touching in its majesty ;
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare,
Shops, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air ;
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, arch, or hill ;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep,
The river glideth at his own sweet will,
Dear God ! the yery houses seem asleep
And all that mighty heart is lying still ! "

Of the traffic by water visible from London Bridge as
you look towards Greenwich, the best idea may be
gathered by a few figures. A Parliamentary Return,
has been issued, showing that the amount of tonnage
cleared from the port of London was in 1750, 796,632
tons, in 1800 the tonnage entered was 796,632; and
that cleared was 729,554. In 1857 the tonnage
entered had risen to 2,834,107, and that cleared to
2,143,884.

OVER LONDON BRIDGE. 95

•

The traffic on London Bridge may be considered as one
of the sights of London. A costernionger's cart, laden
with cabbages for Camberwell, breaks down, and there is
a block extending back almost all the way to the Man-
sion House. Walk back and look at the passengers
thus suddenly checked in their gay career. Omnibuses
are laden with pleasure seekers on their way to the
Crystal Palace. Look, there is "affliction sore" dis-
played on many a countenance and felt in many a heart.
Mary Anne, who knows she is undeniably late, and
deserves to be left behind, thinks that her young mail
won't wait for her. Little Mrs. B. sits trembling with
a dark cloud upon her brow, for she knows Mr. B. has
been at the station Lsince one, and it is now past
two. Look at the pale, wan girl in the corner, asking
if they will be in time to catch the train for Hastings.
You may well ask, poor girl. Haste is vain now. Your
hours are numbered — the sands of your little life are
just run — your bloodless lip, your sunken eye, with its
light not of tin's world — your hectic cheek, from which
the soft bloom of youth has been rudely driven, make one
feel emphatically in your case that " no medicine, though
it oft* can cure, can always balk the tomb." What have
you been — a dressmaker, stitching fashionable silks for
beauty, and at the same time a plain shroud for yourself?
What have you been — a governess, rearing young lives
at the sacrifice of your own ? What have you been — a
daughter of sin and shame ? Ah, well, it is not for me
to cast a stone at you. Hasten on, every moment now

96 OVER LONDON BRIDGE.

is worth a king's ransom, and may He who never turned
a daughter away soften your pillow and sustain your
heart in the dark hour I see too plainly about to
come. What is this, a chaise and four greys. So young-
Jones has done it at last. Is he happy, or has he already
found his Laura slow, and has she already begun to sus-
pect that her Jones may turn out " a wretch" after all.
I know not yet has the sound of his slightly vinous and
foggy eloquence died away ; still ring in his ears the
applause which greeted his announcement that "the
present is the proudest of my life," and his resolution, in
all time to come, in sunshine and in storm, to cherish
in his heart of hearts the lovely being whom he now calls
his bride; but as he leans back there think you that
already he sees another face — for Jones has been a man-
about-town, and sometimes such as he get touched.
This I know —

" Feebly must they have felt

Who in old time attired with snakes and whips

The vengeful furies."

And even Jones may regret he married Laura and quar-
relled with Rose,

" A rosebud set with little wilful thorns

And sweet as English air could make her."

What a wonderful thing it is when a man finds
himself married, all the excitement of the chase over.
Let all Jones3 and Laura's and persons about to marry
see well that they are really in love before they take
the final plunge. But hear that big party behind in a

OVER LONDON BRIDGE. 97

Hansom, using most improper language. Take it easy,
my dear sir, you may catch the Dover train, you may
cross to Calais, you may rush on to Paris, but the
electric telegraph has already told your crime, and
described your person. Therefore be calm, there is no
police officer dogging you, you are free for a few hours
yet. And now come our sleek city men, to Clapham
and Norwood, to dine greatly in their pleasant homes.
The world goes well with them, and indeed it ought,
for they are honest as the times go : are they slightly
impatient, we cannot wonder at it, the salmon may be
overboiled, just because of that infernal old coster's
cart. Hurra ! it moves, and away go busses, and
carriages, and broughams, and hansoms, and a thousand
of Her Majesty's subjects, rich and poor, old and young,
saint and sinner, are in a good temper again, and cease
to break the commandments. Stand here of a morning
while London yet slumbers; what waggons and carts
laden with provisions from the rich gardens of Surrey
and Kent, come over London Bridge. Later, see how
the clerks, and shopmen, and shopwomen, hurry.
Later still, and what trains full of stockbrokers, and
commission agents, and city merchants, from a circle
extending as far as Brighton, daily are landed at the
London Bridge Stations, and cross over. Later still,
and what crowds of ladies from the suburbs come
shopping, or to visit London exhibitions. If we were
inclined to be uncharitable, we might question some
of these fair dames ; I dare say people connected with

H

9S OVER LONDON BEIDGE.

the divorce courts might insinuate very unpleasant
things respecting some of them ; but let us hope that
they are the exception, and that if Mrs. C. meets
some one at the "West End who is not Captain G., and
that if the Captain dines with a gay party at Hampton
Court, when he has informed his wife that business will
detain him in town j or that if that beauty now driving
past in a brougham has no business to be there,
that these sickly sheep do not infect the flock, and, in
the language of good Dr. "Watts, poison all the rest.
Yet there are tales of sin and sorrow connected with
London Bridge. Over its stony parapets, down into its
dark and muddy waters, have men leaped in madness, and
women in shame ; there, at the dead of night, has slunk
away the wretch who feared what the coming morrow
would bring forth, to die. And here woman — deceived,
betrayed, deserted, broken in heart, and blasted beyond all
hope of salvation — has sought repose. A few hours after
and the sun has shone brightly, and men have talked
gaily on the very spot from whence the poor creatures
leapt. Well may we exclaim —

" Sky, oh were are thy cleansing waters
Earth, oh where will thy wonders end."

The Chronicles of Old London Bridge are many and
of eternal interest. When Sweyn, king of Denmark,
on plunder and conquest bent, sailed up the Thames, there
was a London Bridge with turrets and roofed bulwarks.
From 994 to 1750, that bridge, built and rebuilt many

OVER LONDON BRIDGE. 99

times, was the sole land communication between the
city and the Surrey bank of the Thames. In Queen
Elizabeth's time the bridge had become a str^ely one.
Norden describes it as adorned with " sumptuous build-
ings and statelie, and beautiful houses on either syde,"
like one continuous street, except " certain wyde places
for the retyre of passengers from the danger of cars,
carts, and droves of cattle, usually passing that way."
Near the drawbridge, and overhanging the river, was the
famed Nonsuch House, imported from Holland, built
entirely of timber, four stories high, richly carved and
gilt. At the Southwark end was the Traitor's Gate,
where dissevered and ghastly heads were hung sus-
pended in the air. In 1212, the Southwark end
caught fire, and 3000 persons perished miserably in the
flames. In 1264- Henry III. was repulsed here by Simon
de Mountfort, earl of Leicester. Thundering along this
road to sudden death rushed AVat Tyler, in 1381. Here
came forth the citizens, in all their bravery, ten years after,
to meet Richard II. Henry Y. passed over this bridge
twice, once in triumph, and once to be laid down in his
royal tomb. In 1450, we hear a voice exclaiming :
" Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge, and the
citizens fly and forsake their houses;" and thus the
chronicle goes on. Nor must we forget the maid
servant of one Higges, a needle-maker, who, in care-
lessly placing some hot coals under some stairs, set fire
to the house, and thus raised a conflagration wluch
appears to have been of the most extensive character.

H2

100 OVER LONDON BRIDGE.

On London Bridge lived Holbein and Hogarth. Swift
and Pope used to visit Arnold the bookseller on this
bridge.'^ JFrom off this bridge leaped an industrious
apprentice to save the life of his master's infant daugh-
ter, dropped into the river by a careless nursemaid ;
the father was Lord Mayor of London. The in-
dustrious apprentice married the daughter, and the
great-grandson of the happy pair was the first duke
of Leeds. On the first of August, 1831, New Lon-
don Bridge was opened with great pomp by King
William IV., and since then the stream of life across
the bridge has rushed without intermission on.

101

CHAPTER X.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE
EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT.

WHEN is common sense to reign over man ? According
to Dr. Gumming, in a few years we are to have the
Millennium. Will it be then? I fear not. At any
rate, I am certain it will not be before.

Look, for instance, at the House of Commons : the
Lords meet for debate a little after five, p.m., and sepa-
rate generally a little before six, p.m., and it is perfectly
astonishing what an immense amount of business they
get through ; but the Commons meet at four, p.m., and
sit till one or two, a.m.; the consequence is, that very
little business is done : that we have a great deal too
much talking ; that really conscientious members, who
will not forsake their duties, but remain at their posts,
are knocked up, and have to cut Parliament for a time ;
and that what business is done is often performed in
the most slovenly and unsatisfactory manner. A few
minutes' reflection will make this clear. A bill is in-
troduced, or, rather, leave is given to a member to bring

102 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

it in. It is read a first time. To the first reading of
a bill generally little opposition is made. The mem-
ber who introduces it makes a long speech in its favour,
and little discussion takes place. The real fight is
when it is read a second time. There are many ways
of throwing out a bill without the discourtesy of a posi-
tive rejection. The first of these means consists in
giving a preference to other "orders;" the second is,
moving "the previous question." Another is, moving
"that the second reading take place this day six
months." If the bill get over the second reading, it
then goes into committee, when objectionable clauses
are struck out and fresh ones added, till the original
proposer of the bill can hardly recognise his offspring.
The bill is then read a third time, and afterwards sent
up to the Lords. Possibly the Lords object to some
parts of it; a conference with the Commons is then
desired, which accordingly takes place, the deputation
of the Commons standing with uncovered heads, while
the Lords, with hats on, retain their seats. The matter
being amicably arranged, and a disagreeable collision
avoided, the bill is passed through the Lords, where it
usually creates a far more orderly and less passionate
debate than it has done in the Commons. The Lords
being assembled in their own House, the Sovereign, or
the Commissioners, seated, and the Commons at the bar,
the titles of the several bills which have passed both
Houses are read, and the King or Queen's answer is
declared by the clerk of the Parliaments in Norman-

THE E ABLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT. 103

French. To a bill of supply the assent is given in the
following words : — " Le roy (or, la reine) remercie ses
loyal subjects, accepte leur benevolence et ainsi le vent.3'
To a private bill it is thus declared : — " Soit fait comme
il est desire.33 And to public general bills it is given in
these terms : — " Le roy (or, la reine) le vent." Should
the Sovereign refuse his assent, it is in the gentle lan-
guage of "I/eroy (or, la reine) s'aviser" As acts of
grace and amnesty originate with the Crown, the clerk,
expressing the gratitude of the subject, addresses the
throne as follows : — " Les prelats, seigneurs, et commons,
en ce present Parliament assembles, au noni de tout vous
aiitressubjects,remercient tres-humblement votre majeste, et
prient a Dieu vous donner en sante bonne vie et lonyne."
The moment the royal assent has been given, that which
was a bill becomes an Act, and instantly has the force
and effect of law, unless some time for the commence-
ment of its operation should have been specially ap-
pointed. Occasionally a bill is introduced in the form
of a motion, at other times as a resolution, but generally
the bill is the favourite form. Any bill which the Lords
can originate may be introduced and laid on the table
by any individual peer, without the previous permission
of the house ; but in the Commons, no bill can be brought
in unless a motion for leave be previously agreed to.
Mr. Dodd tells us, " During the progress of a bill the
House may divide on the following questions : — 1.
Leave to bring it in. 2. When brought in, whether it
shall then be read a first time, and if not, when ? 3. On

104 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

the first reading. 4. Oil the second reading. 5. That
it be committed. 6. On the question that the Speaker
do leave the chair, for the house to resolve itself into
such committee. 7. That the report of the committee
be received. 8. That the bill be re-committed. 9. That
it be engrossed. 10. That it be read a third time. 11.
That it do pass. 12. The title of the bill. These are
quite exclusive of any divisions concerning the particular
days to be appointed for proceeding with any stage of
the measure, or of any proceedings in committee, or any
amendments, or any clauses added to or expunged from
the measure in or out of committee." Thus it is Acts of
Parliament often made in one sense are ruled by the
judges to have another, and we have Acts to amend Acts
in endless succession. Tom Moore tells us of an Act of
Parliament referring to a new prison, in which it was
stated that the new one should be built with the mate-
rials of the old, and that the prisoners were to remain in
the old prison till the new one was ready. This is an
extreme case, but blunders equally absurd are made every
day.

What is the remedy? Why, none other than the
panacea recommended by Mr. Lilwall as applicable to
every eartlily ill — the Early-closing Movement. Early
closing in the House of Commons would shut up the
lawyers, who want to make long speeches — the diners-
out, who enter the House ofttimes in a state of hilarity
more calculated to heighten confusion than to promote
business — the young swells, to whom the House of Com-

AND THE EARLY-CLOSIXG MOVEMENT. 105

/inons is a club, and nothing more. We should have a
smaller house, but one more ready to do business ;
and if we should lose a few lawyers on promotion, and,
consequently, very industrious, very active, and very
eloquent, that loss would be compensated by the addi-
tion to the House of many men of great talent and poli-
tical capacity, who cannot stand the late hours and the
heated atmosphere, and the frightfully lengthy speeches,
and the furious partisanship of the House as at present
constituted.

I have seen it suggested that a large board should be
placed behind the Speaker's chair ; and that when any
member makes a point, or advances an argument, the
point or argument, whether for or against the measure,
should be noted down and numbered ; that a speaker,
instead of repeating the point or argument, as is now the
case, should simply mention the No. 1, 2, or 3, as the
case may be, and say, " I vote for the bill because of
No. 1," and so on. We should then have no vain re-
petitions; business would be done better, and more
speedily ; members would not be confused ; the reporters
would not have so much trouble as now ; and the patient
public would be spared the infliction in their daily organs
of column after column of parliamentary debate. The
advantage of the Early-closing Movement in the House
of Commons would be, that it would compel the House
to adopt some measure of the kind. It is curious to
trace the increase of late hours. In Clarendon's time
"the House met always at eight o'clock and rose at

106 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

twelve, which were the old parliamentary hours, that
the committees, upon whom the great burden of the
business lay, might have the afternoon for their prepara-
tion and despatch/' Sometimes the House seems to
have met at cock-crowing. In the journals and old
orders of the House we find such entries as the follow-
ing : — "March 26, 1604. Having obtained permission
of her Majesty to attend at eight, the Commons pre-
viously met at six to treat on what shall be delivered
tending the reason of their proceedings." Again, " May
31, 1614. Ordered, that the House shall sit every day
at seven o'clock in the morning, and to begin to read bills
for the first time at ten." The journals record that 011
Sunday, August 8, 1641, at six o'clock a.m., the Com-
mons go down to St. Margaret's, and hear prayers and a
sermon, returning to the House at nine. This, how-
ever, was occasioned by the eagerness of the members to
prevent the king's journey to Scotland, and a minute
was made that it should not be considered as a precedent.
The Long Parliament resolved, " that whosoever shall
not be here at prayers every morning at eight o'clock
shall pay one shilling to the poor." James I. mentioned
as an especial grievance, that the Commons brought the
protestation concerning their liberties into the House at
six o'clock at night, by candle-light ! " I move," said
Serjeant AYylde, " against sitting in the afternoon. This
council is a grave council and sober, and ought not to
do things in the dark." Sir A. Haselrigge said he never
knew good come of candles. Sir "William "Waddington

AND THE EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT. 107

brought iii two from the clerk against the direction of
the House, and was committed to the Tower next morn-
ing. Having sat on the occasion till seven, Sir H. Vane
complained, ' ' "We are not able to hold out sitting thus
in the night." After the Revolution matters got worse.
Bishop Burnet complains that the House did not meet
till twelve ; and in the next generation Speaker Onslow
adds, " This is grown shamefully of late, even to two of
the clock." In the time of Pitt and Fox the evil reached
its climax. The motion for the Speaker leaving the chair
on Fox's India Bill was put to the vote at half-past four
in the morning. During the Westminster scrutiny the
House sometimes sat till six a.m. Pitt, speaking on the
slave-trade, introduced his beautiful quotation relative to
the sun as it was then just bursting on his audience. Sir
Samuel Eomilly tells us that he would not unfrequently
go to bed at his usual time, and rising next morning
somewhat earlier than usual would go down to be pre-
sent at the division. I think it was during the Reform
debates that an hon. M.P., having been present at the
discussion the previous night, and being desirous to
secure a good place the next evening, went down to
the House early in the morning for that special pur-
pose, and found the debate, at the commencement of
which he had been present, and which he thought had
long been over, proceeding hotly and furiously. In
the last session of parliament the house sinned greatly
in this respect. I am told this state of things is for the
advantage of the lawyers, who otherwise would not be

108 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

able to attend in the House at all; but it may be
questioned whether this is such a benefit as some sup-
pose, and certainly the midnight hour, especially after
mind and body have alike been jaded by the strain of a
long debate, is not the best for passing measures of a
legislative character ; and yet it is in the small hours,
when members are weary, or, we fear, in some cases
slightly vinous, or indifferent and apathetic, that most
of the real business of the nation is performed. Now
against this bad habit for many years Mr. Brotherton
waged an incessant but unsuccessful war. As soon as
ever midnight arrived the hon. gentleman was on his
legs, warning honourable members of its arrival, and of
the injury which late hours must necessarily occasion
to their own health, and to the satisfactory progress of
public business. In his attempts Mr. Brotherton then
was aiming as much at the good of the nation as well
as the advantage of the members of the House. Many
were the scenes occasioned by Mr. Brotherton's impor-
tunity. Mr. Grant says, "I have seen one look him
most imploringly in the face, and heard him say, in
tones and with a manner as coaxing as if the party had
been wooing his mistress, ' Do not just yet, Mr. Brother-
ton ; wait one half hour until this business be disposed
of/ I have seen a second seize him by the right arm,
while a third grasped him by the left, with the view of
causing him to resume his seat, and when his sense of
duty overcame all these efforts to seduce or force him
from its path, I have seen a fourth honourable gentle-

AND THE EAULY -CLOSING MOVEMENT. 109

man rush to the assistance of the others, and taking
hold of the tail of his coat, literally press him to his
seat. I have seen Mr. Brotherton, with a perseverance
beyond all praise, in his righteous and most patriotic
cause, suddenly start again to his feet in less than five
minutes, and move a second time the adjournment of
the House, and I have again had the misfortune to see
physical force triumph over the best moral purposes.
Five or six times hare I witnessed the repetition of this
in one night. On one occasion, I remember seeing an
honourable member actually clap his hand on Mr.
Brotherton's mouth, in order to prevent his moving the
dreaded adjournment." Constant ill- success damped
Mr. Brothertoii's ardour. There was a time when his
object seemed attained, but in the last session he at-
tended the Commons were as bad as ever. Mr. Brother-
ton having made a futile attempt when the session was
young, in favour of the Early-closing Movement, aban-
doned Ms position in despair. The call for Brotherton
ceased to be a watchword with our less hopeful senators,
and Mr. Bouverie's view, that more business was got
through after twelve o'clock at night than before, ap-
peared to be generally acquiesced in, with a species of
reluctant despair which was unanswerable. Still it is
true that early to bed and early to rise will make the
Commons more healthy and wise, though the general
practice seems to be the other way.

110

CHAPTER XI.
TOWN MORALS.

HAVE you seen Charles Matthews in "Used Up ?" Sir
Charles Coldstream represents us all. We are everlast-
ingly seeking a sensation, and never finding it. Sir
Charles's valet's description of him describes us all : —
" He's always sighing for what he calls excitement — you
see, everything is old to him — he's used up — nothing-
amuses him — he can't feel." And so he looks in the
crater of Vesuvius and finds nothing in it, and the Bay of
Naples he considers inferior to that of Dublin — the Cam-
pagna to him is a swamp — Greece a morass — Athens a bad
Edinburgh — Egypt a desert — the pyramids humbugs.
The same confession is on every one's lips. The boy of
sixteen, with a beardless chin, has a melancholy blase
air ; the girl gets wise, mourns over the vanity of life,
and laughs at love as a romance ; a heart — unless it be
a bullock's, and well cooked, — is tacitly understood to be
a mistake ; and conscience a thing that no one can afford
to keep. Our young men are bald at twenty-five, and
woman is exhausted still sooner, I am told Quakers

TOM'S" MORALS. Ill

are sometimes moved by the spirit. I am told mad
Banters sing, and preach, and roar as if they were in
earnest. I hear that there is even enthusiasm amongst
the Mormons; but that matters little. We are very
few of us connected with such outre sects, and the
exceptions but prove the rule.

But a truce to generalities. Let us give modern
instances. Look at Jenkins, the genteel stockbroker.
In autumn he may be seen getting into his brougham,
which already contains his better-half and the olive-
branches that have blessed their mutual loves. This
brougham will deposit the Jenkinses, and boxes of lug-
gage innumerable, at the Brighton Railway Terminus,
whence it is their intention to start for that crowded and
once fashionable watering-place. Jenkins has been
dying all the summer of the heat. Why, like the blessed
ass as he is, did he stop in town, when for a few shillings
he might have been braced and cooled by sea breezes,
but because of that monotony which forbids a man con-
sulting nature and common sense. Jenkins only goes
out of town when the fashionable world goes ; he would
not for the life of him leave till the season was over.

Again, does ever the country look lovelier than when
the snows of winter reluctantly make way for the first
flowers of spring ? Is ever the air more balmy or purer
than when the young breath of summer, like a tender
maiden, kisses timidly the cheek, and winds its way, like
a blessing from above, to the weary heart ? Does ever
the sky look bluer, or the sun more glorious, or the

112 TOWN MORALS.

earth more green, or is ever the melody of birds more
musical, than then? and yet at that time the beau
monde must resort to town, and London drawing-rooms
must emit a polluted air, and late hours must enfeeble,
and bright eyes must become dull, and cheeks that
might have vied in loveliness with the rose, sallow
and pale.

It is a fine tiling for a man to get hold of a good
cause; one of the finest sights that earth can boast
is that of a man or set of men standing up to put into
action what they know to be some blessed God-sent
truth. A Cromwell mourning the flat Popery of St.
Paul's — a Luther, before principalities and powers, ex-
claiming, " Here stand I and will not move, so help me
God \" — a Howard making a tour of the jails of Europe,
and dying alone and neglected on the shores of the
Black Sea — a Henry Martyn leaving1 the cloistered halls
of Cambridge, abandoning the golden prospects opening
around him, and abandoning what is dearer still, the
evils of youth, to preach Christ, and Him crucified, be-
neath the burning and fatal sun of the East — or a
Hebrew maiden, like Jepthah's daughter, dying for her
country or her country's good, — are sights rare and
blessed, and beautiful and divine. All true teachers are
the same, and are glorious to behold. For a time no
one regards their testimony. The man stands by him-
self— a reed, but not shaken by the wind — a voice crying
in the wilderness — a John the Baptist nursed in the
wilds, and away from the deadening spell of the world.

TOWN MORALS. 113

Then comes the influence of the solitary thinker on old
fallacies; the young and the enthusiastic rush to his
side, the sceptic and the scoffer one by one disappear,
and the world is conquered ; or if it be not so, if he
languishes in jail like Galileo, or wanders on the face of
the earth seeking rest and finding none, like our Puritan
forefathers; or die, as many an hero has died, as the
Christ did, when the power qf the Prince of Darkness
prevailed, and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain ;
still there is for him a resurrection, when a coming age
will honour his memory, collect his scattered ashes, and
build them a fitting tomb. Yet even this kind of
heroism has come to be but a monotonous affair.

Now-a-days the thing can be done, and in one way
— a meeting at Exeter Hall, a dinner at Freemasons'
tavern, Harker for toast-master, a few vocalists to sing
between the pieces, and for chairman a lord by all
means; if possible, a royal duke. The truest thing
about us is our appetite. Our appreciation of a hero
is as our appreciation of a coat ; a saviour of a nation
and a Soyer we class together, and do justice to both at
the same time. We moderns eat where our fathers bled.
Our powers we show by the number of bottles of wine
we can consume ; our devotion is to our dinners ; the
sword has made way for the carving-knife ; our battle is
against the ills to which gluttonness and wine-bibbing
flesh is heir ; the devil that comes to us is the gout ;
the hell in which we believe and against which we fight
is indigestion; our means of grace are blue pill and

i

114 TOWN MOEALS.

black draught. All art and science and lettered lore,
all the memories of the past and the hopes of the
future —

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights —
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,"

now-a-days, tend to dinner. Our sympathy with the
unfortunate females, or the indigent blind, with the
propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, or with the
diffusion of useful knowledge at home — with the Earl
of Derby or Mr. Cobden — with Lord John Eussell or
Mr. Disraeli — with the soldier who has blustered and
bullied till the world has taken him for a hero — with
the merchant who has bound together in the peaceful
pursuits of trade hereditary foes — with the engineer who
has won dominion over time and space — with the poet
who has sat

" In the light of thought

Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought
To sympathy, with hopes and joys it heeded not,"

finds a common mode of utterance, and that utterance
to all has a common emphasis. Even the Church apes
the world in tin's respect ; and even that section which
calls itself non-conforming, conforms here. When
dinner is concerned, it forgets to protest, and becomes
dumb. Dr. Watts might sing,

" Lord, what a wretched land is this
That yields us no supplies;"

TOWN MOKALS. 115

'but his successors do not. I read of grand ordination,
dinners, of grand dinners when a new chapel is erected
or an old pastor retires. But lately I saw one reverend
gentleman at law with another. Most of my readers
will recollect the case. It was that of Tidman against
Ainslie. Dr. Tidman triumphs, and the Missionary
-Society is vindicated. What was the consequence ? — a
dinner to Dr. Tidman at the Guildhall Coffee-house,
at which all the leading ministers of the denomination
to which he belonged were present.

The Queen is the fountain of honour. What has
been the manner of men selected for royal honour ?
The last instance is Lord Dudley, who has been made an
earl. Why? Is it that he lent Mr. Lumley nearly
£100,000 to keep the Hayrnarket Opera House open?
because really this is all the general public knows about
Lord Dudley. The other day Lord Derby was the
means of getting a peerage for a wealthy and undis-
tinguished commoner. Is it come to this, then, that we
give to rich men, as such, honours which ought to be
precious, and awarded by public opinion to the most
gifted and the most illustrious of our fellows. If in
private life I toady a rich swell, that I may put my feet
under his mahogany, and drink his wine, besides making
an ass of myself, I do little harm ; but if we prostitute
the honours of the nation, the nation itself suffers ;
and, as regards noble sentiments and enlightened public
.spirit, withers and declines.

Guizot says— and if he had not said it somebody

12

116 TOWN MORALS.

else would — that our civilization is yet young. I believe
it. At present it is little better than an experiment.
If it be a good, it is not without its disadvantages. It
has its drawbacks. Man gives up something for it.
One of its greatest evils perhaps is its monotony,
which makes us curse and mourn our fate — which
forces from our lips the exclamation of Mariana, in the
" Moated Grange " —

" I'm a aweary, aweary —
Oh, would that I were dead;"

or which impels us, with the " Blighted Being " of
Locksley Hall, to long to " burst all bonds of habit
and to wander far away/' Do these lines chance to
attract the attention of one of the lords of creation —
of one who,

" Thoughtless of mamma's alarms,
Sports high-heeled boots and whiskers,"

— what is it, we would ask, most magnanimous Sir^
in the most delicate manner imaginable, that keeps
you standing by the hour together, looking out of the
window of your club in Pall Mall, in the utter weari-
ness of your heart, swearing now at the weather, now
t the waiter, and, anon, muttering something about
/our dreaming that you dwelt in marble halls, but
that very monotony of civilization which we so much
deprecate ? Were it not for that, you might be work-
ing in this working world — touching the very kernel
and core of life, instead of thus feeding on its shell..

TOWN MORALS. 117

And if it be that the soft eye of woman looks dowii
on what we now write, what is it, we would ask, O
peerless paragon, 0 celestial goddess, but the same
feeling that makes you put aside the last new novel,
and, in shameless defiance of the rules taught in that
valuable publication and snob's vade mecum — " Hints
on the Etiquette and the Usages of Society," actually
yawn — aye, yawn, when that gold watch, hanging by
your most fairy-like and loveliest of forms, does not
tell one hour that does not bear with it from earth to
heaven some tragedy acted — some villainy achieved
— some heroic thing done : aye, yawn, when before you
is spread out the great rule of life, with its laughter
and tears — with its blasts from hell — with its odours
coming down from heaven itself. A brave, bold, noble-
hearted Miss Nightingale breaks through this mono-
tony, and sails to nurse the wounded or the dying of
our army in the East, and ' ' Common Sense " writes in
newspapers against such a noble act ; and a religious
paper saw in it Popery at the very least. What a
howl has there been in some quarters because a few
clergymen have taken to preaching in theatres 1 Even
woman's heart, with its gushing sympathies, has become
dead and shrivelled up, where that relentless scourge —
that demon of our time, the monotony of civilization —
has been suffered to intrude. It is owing to that, that
when we look for deeds angels might love to do, our
daughters, and sisters, and those whom we most passion-
ately love, scream out Italian songs which neither they

118 TOWN MORALS.

nor we understand, and bring to us, as the result of their
noblest energies, a fancy bag or a chain of German wool.
Such is the result of what Sir W. Curtis termed the three
It's and the usual accomplishments. Humanity has
been stereotyped. We follow one another like a flock
of sheep. We have levelled with a vengeance ; we have
reduced the doctrine of human equality to an absurdity
— we live alike, think alike, die alike. A party in a
parlour iii Belgrave Square, " all silent and all d — d,"
is as like a party in a parlour in Hackney as two peas.
The beard movement was a failure ; so was the great
question of hat reform, and for similar reasons. We
still scowl upon a man with a wide-a-wake, as we should
upon a pick-pocket or a cut-throat. A leaden monotony
hangs heavy on us all. Not more does one man or
woman differ from another than does policeman A 1 differ
from policeman A 999. Individuality seems gone : in-
dependent life no longer exists. Our very thought and
inner life is that of Buggins, who lives next door. The
skill of the tailor has made us all one, and man, as God
made him, cuts but a sorry figure by the side of man as
his tailor made him. This is an undeniable fact : it is
not only true but the truth. One motive serves for every
variety of deed — for dancing the polka or marrying a
wife — for wearing white gloves or worshipping the Most
High. "At any rate, my dears," said a fashionable
dame to her daughters when they turned round to go
home, on finding that the crowded state of the church to
which they repaired would not admit of their worshipping

TOWX MORALS. 119

according to Act of Parliament, — "At any rate, my
dears, we have done the genteel thing/' By that
mockery to God she had made herself right in the sight
of man. Actually we are all so much alike that not very
long since in Madrid a journeyman tailor was mistaken
for a Prince. It is not always that such extreme cases
happen ; but the tendency of civilization, as we have it
now, is to work us all up into one common, unmeaning
whole — to confound all the old distinctions by which
classes Avere marked — to mix up the peasant and the
prince, more by bringing down the latter than elevating
the former; and thus we all become unmeaning, and
monotonous, and common-place. The splendid livery
in which " Jeaines" rejoices may show that he is foot-
man to a family that dates from the Conquest : it may
be that he is footman to the keeper of the ham and beef
shop near London Bridge. The uninitiated cannot tell
the difference. A man says he is a lord ; otherwise we
should not take him for one of the nobles of the earth.
A man puts on a black gown, and says he is a religious
teacher : otherwise we should not take him for one who
could understand and enlighten the anxious yearnings of
the human heart. The old sublime faith in God and
heaven is gone. "We have had none of it since the days
of old Noll : it went out when Charles and his mistresses
came in. But instead, we have a world of propriety and
conventionalism. We have a universal worshipping of
Mrs. Grundy. A craven fear sits in the hearts of all.
Men dare not be generous, high-minded, and true. A

120 TOWN MORALS.

man dares not act otherwise than the class by which he
is surrounded : he must conform to their regulations or
die ; outside the pale there is no hope. If he would not
be as others are, it were better that a millstone were
hung round his neck and that he were cast into the sea.
If, as a tradesman, he will not devote his energies to
money-making — if he will not rise up early and sit up
late — if he will not starve the mind — if he will not vio-
late the conditions by which the physical and mental
powers are sustained — he will find that in Christian
England, in the nineteenth century, there is] no room for
such as he. The externals which men in their ignorance
have come to believe essential to happiness, he will see
another's. Great city " feeds " — white-bait dinners at
Blackwall, and " genteel residences," within a few miles
of the Bank or the bridges — fat coachmen and fiery
steeds — corporation honours and emoluments, — a man
may seek in vain if he will not take first, the ledger for
his Gospel, and mammon for his God. It is just the
same with the professions. Would the "most distin-
guished counsel" ever have a brief were he to scorn to
employ the powers God has given him to obtain impunity
for the man whose heart's life has become polluted with
crime beyond the power of reform. Many a statesman
has to thank a similar laxity of conscience for his place
and power.

121

CHAPTER XI.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

I AM not in the best of humours. The wind and
weather of the last few months have been bad enough to
vex the temper and destroy the patience of a saint. I
wish the papers would write a little more about reforms
at home, and not trouble themselves about the Emperor
of the French. I wish country gentlemen, when airing
their vocabularies at agricultural dinners, would not
talk so much of our friends across the water being de-
sirous to avenge the disgrace of Waterloo, as if there
were any disgrace to Trance, after having been a match,
single-handed, for all Europe for a generation, in being
compelled to succumb at last. I wish we could be
content with trading with China, without sending am-
bassadors to Pekin, and endeavouring by fair means or
foul to make that ancient city, as regards red-tapeisin
and diplomatic quarrels, as great a nuisance as Con-
stantinople is now. I wish Mr. George Augustus Sala,
with that wonderful talent of his for imitating Dickens
and Thackeray, would quite forget there was such

122 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

gentlemen in the world, and write independently of
them. And I wish the little essayists, who copy Mr.
George Augustus Sala, and are so very smart and face-
tious by his aid, would either swim without corks, or
not swim at all. Thank heaven, none of them are per-
manent, and most of them speedily sink down into
limbo. Where are the gaudily-covered miscellanies,
and other light productions of this class ? if not dead,
why on every second-hand book-stall in London, in
vain seeking a sale at half-price, and dear at the money.
But the spirit of which they are the symptom, of which
they 'are the outward and \isible sign, lives. Directly
you take up one of these books, you know what is
coming. But after all, why quarrel with these butter-
flies, who, at any rate, have a good conceit of them-
selves, if they have but a poor opinion of others ?
Fontaine tells of a motherly crab, who exclaimed against
the obliquity of her daughter's gait, and asked whether
she could not walk straight. The young crab pleaded,
very reasonably, the similarity of her parent's manner
of stepping, and asked whether she could be expected
to walk differently from the rest of the family ?

This fable throws me back on general principles ;
our writers — our preachers — our statesmen, are fearful,
and tremble at the appearance of originality. The age
overrules us all, society is strong, and the individual is
consequently weak. We have no patrons now, but,
instead, we have a mob. Attend a public meeting, — the
speaker who is the most applauded, is the man most

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 123

given to exaggeration. Listen to a popular preacher, —
is he not invariably the most commonplace, and in his
sermons least suggestive, of men ? "When a new periodi-
cal is projected, what care is taken that it shall contain
nothing to offend, as if a man or writer were worth a
rap that did not come into collision with some pre-
judices, and trample on some corns. In describing some
ceremony where beer had been distributed, a teetotal
reporter, writing for a teetotal public, omitted all
mention of the beer. This is ridiculous, but such
things are done every day in all classes. Society exer-
cises a censorship over the press of the most distinctive
character. The song says,

" Have faith iu one another."

I say, have faith in yourself. This faith in oneself
would go far to put society in a better position than it
is. A common complaint in everybody's mouth is the
want of variety in individual character — the dreary
monotony we find everywhere pervading society. Men
and women, lads and maidens, boys and girls, if we may
call the little dolls dressed up in crinoline and flounces,
and the young gentlemen in patent-leather boots, such,
are all alike. Civilization is a leveller of the most
destructive kind. Man is timid, imitative, and lazy.
Hence, it is to the past we must turn, whenever we
would recall to our minds how sublime and great man,
in his might and majesty, may become. Hence it is we
can reckon upon but few who dare to stand alone in
devotedness to truth and human rischt. Most men are

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

enslaved by the opinions of the little clique in which
they move ; they can never imagine that beyond their
little circle there can exist anything that is lovely or of
good report. We are the men, and wisdom will die with
us, is the burden of their song. We judge not according
to abstract principles, but conventional ideas. Ask a
young lady, of average intelligence, respecting some busy
hive of industry, and intelligence, and life. " Oh !" she
exclaims, " there is no society in such a place." Ask an
evangelical churchman as to a certain locality, and he
will reply, ' ' Oh it is very dark, dark, indeed ;" as if
there was a spot on this blessed earth where God's sun
did not shine. The dancing Bayaderes, who visited

O v

London some fifteen years back, were shocked at what
they conceived the immodest attire of our English dames,
Avho, in their turn, were thankful that they did not
dress as the Bayaderes. All uneducated people, or rather
all uiireflectivt people, are apt to reason in this way ;
orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy, yours. Bat we
English, especially, are liable to this fallac}r, on account
of our insular position, and the reserve and phlegm of
our national character. Abroad people travel more,
come more into collision with each other, socially are
more equal. We can only recognize goodness and
greatness in certain forms. People must be well-dressed,
must be of respectable family, must go to church, and
then they may carry on any rascality. Sir John Dean
Paul, Redpath, and others, were types of this class.
Hence it is society stagnates — such is a description of a

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 125

general law, illustrated in all history, especially our own.
Society invariably sets itself against all great improve-
ments hi their birth. Society gives the cold shoulder to
whatever has lifted up the human race — to whatever has
illustrated and adorned humanity — to whatever has made
the world wiser and better. Our fathers stoned the
prophets, and we continue the amiable custom. Our
judgment is not our own, but that of other people. We
think what will other people think ? our first question is
not, Is a course of action right or wrong ? but ; What
will Mr. Grundy say ? Here is the great blunder of
blunders. John the Baptist lived in a desert. " If I
had read as much as other men," said Hobbes, "I should
have been as ignorant as they." " When I began to
write against indulgences," says Luther, "I was for three
years entirely alone ; not a single soul holding out the
hand of fellowship and cooperation to me." Of Milton,
Wordsworth writes, " his soul was like a star, and dwelt
apart."

The great original thinker of the last generation,
John Foster, actually fled the face of man. What a
life of persecution and misrepresentation had Arnold of
Rugby to endure, and no wonder, when we quote
against the conclusions of common sense the imaginary
opinions of an imaginary scarecrow we term society.
This deference to the opinion of others is an unmitigated
evil. In no case is it a legitimate rule of action. The
chances are that society is on the wrong side, as men
of independent thought and action are in the minority,

126 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

and even if society be right ; it is not from a desire to
win her smile or secure her favour that a man should
act. It is not the judgment of others that a man must
seek, but his own ; it is by that he must act — by that
he must stand or fall — by that lie must live — and by
that he must die. All real life is internal, all honest
action is born of honest thought ; out of the heart are
the issues of life. The want of exercising one's own
understanding has been admirably described by Locke.
It is that, he says, which weakens and extinguishes this
noble faculty in us. "Trace it, and see whether it be
not so ; the day labourer in a country village has com-
comly but a small pittance of knowledge, because his
ideas and notions have been confined to the narrow
bounds of a poor conversation and employment ; the
low mechanic of a country town does somewhat out-
do him — porters and cobblers of great cities surpass
him. A country gentleman, leaving Latin and Learn-
ing in the University, who returns thence to his
mansion-house, and associates with his neighbours of
the same strain, who relish nothing but hunting and a
bottle ; with these alone he spends his time, with these
alone he converses, and can away with no company
whose discourses go beyond what claret and dissolute-
ness inspire. Such a patriot, formed in this happy day
of improvement, cannot fail, we see, to give notable
decisions upon the bench at quarter sessions, and
eminent proofs of his skill in politics, when the strength
of his purse, and party, have advanced him to a more

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 127

auspicious situation. * * * To carry this a little
further: here is one muffled up in the zeal and in-
fallibility of his own sect, and will not touch a book, or
enter into debate, with a person that will question any
of those things which, to him, are sacred/' People
wonder now-a-days why we have so many societies —
the cause is the same. Men cannot trust themselves ;
to do that requires exercise of the understanding. A
man must take his opinions from society ; he can do no
battle with the devil unless he have an association
formed to aid him. At Oxford the example of an
individual, Dr. Livingstone, created a generous enthu-
siasm. A society was formed under distinguished
patronage, subscription lists were opened, a public
meeting was held, and the most renowned men of the
day — the Bishop of Oxford and Mr. Gladstone — lent to
the meeting not merely the attraction of their presence,
but the charm of their oratorical powers. The result is
a very small collection, and a talk of sending out six
missionaries to christianize Africa. When societies are
formed there is no end to the absurdities they are guilty
of. Just think of the men of science at Aberdeen,
all rushing over hill and dale to Balmoral, where they
were permitted, not to converse with majesty (that were
too great an act of condescension), but to have lunch in
an apartment of the royal residence. Then, again, what
murmurs were there at Bradford, because, at the close of
the meeting, the younger members of the Social Reform
Congress were not permitted to dance the polka. If old

128 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Columbus were alive now a new world would never have
been discovered. We should have had a limited lia-
bility company established for the purpose. A board of
lawyers, and merchants, and M.P/s, as directors, would
have been formed. Some good-natured newspaper
editors would have inserted some ingenious puffs, — the
shares would have gone up in the market, — the directors
would have sold out at a very fair rate of profit. Co-
lumbus would have made one or two unsuccessful voyages
— the shares would have gone down — the company
would have been wound up — and no western continent,
with its vast resources, would ever have been heard of.
I like the old plan best; I like to see a man. If I go
into the House of Commons I hear of men, somewhat
too much talk of men is there ; on one side of the house
Pitt is quoted, on another Pox, or Peel, or Canning. If
Pitt, and Pox, and Canning, and Peel had done so depend
upon it we should never have heard their names. It is
a poor sign when our statesmen get into this habit ; it
is a mutual confession of inability to act according to
the wants and necessities of the age. They quote great
men to hide their littleness. They imagine that by using
the words of great statesmen they may become such, or,
at any rate, get the public to note them for such them-
selves. They use the names of Pitt and Fox as corks,
by means of which they may keep afloat. "Well, I must
fain do the same ; while I rail against custom, I must
e'en follow her.

" He seems to me," said old Montaigne, " to have

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 129

had a right and true apprehension of the power of
custom, who first invented the story of a country-woman
who, having accustomed herself to play with and carry a
young calf in her arms, and daily continuing to do so as it
grew up obtained this by custom, that when grown to
a great ox she was still able to bear it. For, in truth,
custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress.
She by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips in
the foot of her authority, but having by this gentle
and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed
and established it, she then unmasks a furious and ty-
rannical countenance, against which we have no more
the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.
We see it at every turn forcing and violating the rules
of nature. Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister.
Custom is the greatest master of all things."

And now I finish with a fable. A knight surprised
a giant of enormous size and wickedness sleeping, his
head lying under the shade of a big oak. The knight
prayed to heaven to aid his strength, and lifting his
battle-axe dashed it with all his might on the giant's
forehead. The giant opened his eyes, and drowsily
passing his hand over his eyes, murmured, " The falling
leaves trouble my rest/' and straight he slumbered
again. The knight summoned his energies for another
stroke, again whirled his axe in the air, and furiously
dashed it to the utter destruction of the giant's scull.
The latter merely stirred, and said, "The dropping
acorns disturb my sleep." The knight flung down his

K:

130 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

axe and fled in despair from an enemy who held his
fiercest blows and his vaunted and well-tried might
but as falling leaves and dropping acorns. Reader, so
do I. My hardest blows shall seem but as leaves and
acorns to the giant with whom I am at war, and would
fain destroy.

131

CHAPTER XII.
LONDON MATRIMONIAL.

LAST year 25,924 couples were married in the metro-
polis. The Registrar-General tells us the increase of
early marriages chiefly occurs in the manufacturing and
mining districts.

In London 2'74 of the men and 12'11 of the
women who married were not of full age. There is an
excess of adults in the metropolis at the. marrying ages
over 21 ; and there are not apparently the same in-
ducements to marry early, as exist in the Midland
counties.

Sir Cresswell Cresswell must have but a poor opinion
of matrimony. At the very moment of my writing, I
am told there are six hundred divorce cases in arrear ;
that is, after the hundreds whose chains he has loosened,
there, are, it appears, already twelve hundred more of
injured wives and husbands eager to be free. The
evil, such as it is, will extend itself. Under the old
system there was, practically speaking, no redress, and
a man and woman tied together would endeavour to

K2

132 LONDON MATRIMONIAL.

make the best of it ; now, if they feel the more they
quarrel and disagree with each other, the better chance
they have of being at liberty, it is to be feared, in some
cases, husband and wife will not try so heartily to for-
get and forgive, as husbands and wives ought to do.
I do not say there ought not to be liberty, where all love
has long since died out, and been followed by bad faith
and cruelty, and neglect. I believe there should be, and
that the Divorce Act was an experiment imperatively
required. "Where mutual love has been exchanged
for mutual hate, it is hard that human law should bind
together, in what must be life-long misery — misery
perhaps not the less intense that it has uttered no word
of complaint, made no sign, been unsuspected by the
world, yet all the while dragging its victim to an early
or premature grave. But human nature is a poor
weak tiling, and many a silly man or silly woman may
think that Sir Cresswell Cresswell may prove a healing
physician, when their malady was more in themselves
than they cared to believe. I hear of one case where
a lady having £15,000 a-year in her own right, has run
off with her footman. Would she have done that if
there had been no Sir Cresswell ? I fancy not. Again,
another marrried lady, with £100,000 settled on her,
runs off with the curate. Had it not occurred to her
that Sir Cresswell Cresswell would, in due time, dis-
solve her union with her legitimate lord, and enable
her to follow the bent of her passions, would she not
have fought with them, and in the conquest of them

LONDON MATRIMONIAL. 133

won more true peace for herself, than she can ever hope
for now ? I believe so. In the long commerce of a
life, there must be times, when we may think of others
we have known, when we may idly fancy we should
have been happier with others ; but true wisdom will
teach us that it is childish to lament after the event,
that it were wiser to take what comfort we can find,
and that, after all, it is duty, rather than happiness, that
should be the pole-star of life. Southey told Shelley
a man might be happy with any woman, and certainly
a wise man, once married, will try to make the best of it.
But to return to Sir Cresswell Cresswell, I wish that he
could give relief without stirring up such a pool of
stinking mud. Who is benefitted by the disgusting
details ? It is a fine thing for the penny papers. They
get a large sale, and so reap their reward. The Times*
also, is generally not very backward when anything
peculiarly revolting and indecent is to be told ; but are
the people, high or low, rich or poor, the better ? I find
it hard to believe they are. How husbands can be
false, how wives can intrigue, how servants can connive,
we know, and we do not want to hear it repeated. If
Prior's Chloe was an ale-house drab, if the Clara of Lord
Bolingbroke sold oranges in the Court of Requests, if
Fielding kept indifferent company, we are amused or
grieved, but still learn something of genius, even from
its errors ; but of the tribe Smith and Brown I care not
to hear — ever since the Deluge the Smiths and Browns
have been much the same. What am I the better for

134 LONDON MATRIMONIAL.

learning all the rottenness of domestic life ? Is that fit
reading for the family circle ? I suppose the newspapers
think it is, but I cannot come to that opinion. Can it
have a wholesome effect on the national feeling ? Can it
heighten the reverence for Nature's primary ordinance of
matrimony ?

In the Book of Common Prayer I read that matri-
mony is "holy;" that it was instituted of God in the
time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical
union that is between Christ and his Church, which hply
estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence
and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee ;
and is commended of St. Paul to be honourable among
all men, and, therefore, is not by any to be enterprised,
" nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to
satisfy men's carnal lusts or appetites, like brute beasts
that have no understanding ; but reverently, discreetly,
advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly con-
sidering the causes for which matrimony was ordained."

Alas ! our age is not a marrying age ; and, there-
fore, I fear it is an unholy one : neither our young men
nor our young maidens honestly fall in love and marry
now-a-days. I don't know that the Registrar-General's
report says such. I know that many of lus marriages
are affairs of convenience; unions of businesses, or
thousands, or broad lauds ; not marriages " holy," in the
sense of the prayer-book and of God. A man who
marries simply for love, exposes himself to ridicule ; the
modern ingenuous youth is not so green as all that ; if

LONDON MATRIMONIAL, 135

he marries at all, it must be an heiress, or, at any rate,
one well dowered. The last thing your modern well-
bred beauty does, is to unite her fate with that of a man
in the good old-fashioned way. She has learnt to set
her heart upon the accidents of life, — the fine house,
the establishment; and if these she cannot have, she
will even die an old maid. The real is sacrified to the
imaginary ; the substance, to the shadow ; the present,
to the morrow that never comes. A man says he will
become rich ; he will sacrifice everything to that ; and
the chances are he becomes poor in heart and purse.
The maiden —

With the meek brown eyes,
In whose orb a shadow lies,
Like the dusk in evening skies —

loses all her divinity, and pines away, and becomes what
I care not to name ; and the world — whose wisdom is
folly — sanctions all this. It calls itjprudence, foresight.
A man has no business to marry till he can keep a wife,
is the cuckoo cry ; which would have some meaning if a
wife was a horse or a dog, and not an answer to a human
need, and an essential to success in life. The world for-
gets that man is not an automaton, but a being fearfully
and wonderfully framed. No machine, but a lyre re-
sponsive to the breath of every passing passion : now
fevered with pleasure ; now toiling for gold ; anon seek-
ing to build up a lofty fame ; and that the more eager
and passionate and daring he is — the more eagle is his
eye, and the loftier his aim, the more he needs woman

136 LONDON MATRIMONIAL.

— the comforter and the helpmeet — by his side. Our
fathers did not ignore this, and they succeeded. Because
the wife preserved them from the temptations of life;
because she, with her words and looks of love, assisted
them to bear the burdens and fight the battles of life ;
because she stood by her husband's side as his help-
meet ; bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh ; soothing each
sorrow ; aiding each upward aim : it was thus they be-
came great ; and it is because we do not thus, we pale
before them. It is not good for man to be alone. Man
has tried to disobey the divine law, and lived alone ; and
what has been the result ? — even when tried by men of
superior sanctity, as in the case of the Eomish Church,
has the world gained in happiness or morality ? 1 trow
not. Take the limited experience of our own age, and
fathers and mothers know, to their bitter cost, I am right.
The manhood, brave and generous, much of it wrecked in
our great cities, will bear me out. But matrimony is
more than this. It spite of the hard matter-of-fact,
sceptical, and therefore sensual character of the passing
day/ will it not be confessed that the union of man and
woman, as husband and wife, is the greatest earthly need,
and is followed by the greatest earthly good ? Unhappy
marriages there may be; imprudent ones there may be;
but such are not the rule ; and very properly our legis-
lators have agreed to give relief in such cases. " Nature
never did betray the soul that loved her ;" and nature
tells men and women to marry. Just as the young man
is entering upon life — just as he comes to independence

LONDON MATRIMONIAL. 137

and man's estate — just as the crisis of his being is to be
solved, and it is to be seen whether he decide with the
good, and the great, and the true, or whether he sink
and be lost for ever, Matrimony gives him ballast and a
right impulse. Of course it can't make of a fool a plti-
losopher ; but it can save a fool from being foolish.
War with nature and she takes a sure revenge. Tell a
young man not to have an attachment that is virtuous,
and he will have one that is vicious. Virtuous love —
the honest love of a man for the woman he is about to
marry, gives him an anchor for his heart; something
pure and beautiful for which to labour and live ; and
the woman, what a purple light it sheds upon her path ;
it makes life for her no day-dream ; no idle hour ; no
painted shadow ; no passing show ; but something real,
earnest, worthy of her heart and head. But most of
us are cowards and dare not think so ; we lack grace ;
we are of little faith ; our inward eye is dim and dark.
The modern young lady must marry in style ; the mo-
dern young gentleman marries a fortune. But in the
meanwhile the girl grows into an old maid, and the
youth takes chambers — ogles at nursery -maids and
becomes a man about town — a man whom it is danger-
ous to ask into your house, for his business is intrigue.
The world might have had a happy couple ; instead, it
gets a woman fretful, nervous, fanciful, a plague to all
around her. He becomes a sceptic in all virtue; a
corrupter of the youth of both sexes ; a curse in what-
ever domestic circle he penetrates. Even worse may

13$ LONDON MATRIMONIAL.

result. She may be deceived, and may die of a broken
heart. He may rush from one folly to another ; asso-
ciate only with the vicious and depraved; bring dis-
grace and sorrow on himself and all around; and
sink into an early grave. Our great cities show what
becomes of men and women who do not marry. World-
ly fathers and mothers advise not to marry till they can
afford to keep a wife, and the boys spend on a harlot
more in six months than would keep a wife six years.
Hence it is, all wise men (like old Franklin) advocate
early marriages ; and that all our great men, with rare
exceptions, have been men who married young. Words-
worth had only £100 a year when he first married.
Lord Eldon was so poor that he had to go to Clare-
market to buy sprats for supper. Coleridge and Southey
I can't find had any income at all when they got mar-
ried. I question at any time whether Luther had more
than fifty pounds a year. Our successful men in trade
and commerce marry young, like George Stephenson,
and the wife helps him up in the world in more ways
than "one. Dr. Smiles, in his little book on Self-Help,
gives us the following anecdote respecting J. Maxman
and his wife — "Ann Denham was the name of his
wife — and a cheery, bright-souled, noble woman she
was. He believed that in marrying her he should
be able to work with an intenser spirit ; for, like him,
she had a taste for poetry and art ! and, besides, was
an enthusiastic admirer of her husband's genius. Yet
when Sir Joshua Reynolds — himself a bachelor — met

LONDON MATRIMONIAL. 139

Elaxman shortly after his marriage, he said to him,
' So, Maxman, I am told you are married ; if so, sir, I
tell you, you are ruined for an artist/ Flaxmau went
straight home, sat down beside his wife, took her hand
in his, and said, ' Ann, I am ruined for an artist/ ' How
so, John ? How has it happened ? And who has done
it ? ' 'It happened/ he replied, ' in the church ; and
Ann Denham has done it/ He then told her of Sir
Joshua's remark — whose opinion Avas well known, and
has been often expressed, that if students would excel
they must bring the whole powers of their mind to
bear upon their art from the moment they rise until
they go to bed ; and also, that no man could be a great
artist, unless he studied the grand works of Raffaelle,
Michael Angelo, and others, at Rome and Florence.
' And I/ said Maxman, drawing up his little figure to
its full height, ' I would be a great artist/ ' And a great
artist you shall be/ said his wife, ' and visit Rome, too, if
that be really necessary to make you great/ 'But how ?'
asked Flaxman. 'Work and economise/ rejoined his
brave wife : ' I will never have it said that Ann Denham
ruined John Plaxman for an artist/ And so it was
determined by the pair that the journey to Rome was
to be made when their means would admit. ' I will
go to Rome/ said Maxman, ' and show the President
that wedlock is for man's good rather than for his
harm, and you, Ann, shall accompany me/ He kept
his word/'

By forbidding our young men and maidens ma-

140 LONDON MATRIMONIAL.

trimony, we blast humanity in its very dawn. Fathers,
you say you teach your sons prudence — you do nothing
of the kind ; your worldly- wise and clever son is already
ruined for life. You will find him at Cremorne and at
the Argyle Rooms. Your wretched worldly-wisdom
taught him to avoid the snare of marrying young ; and
soon, if he is not involved in embarrassments which
will last him a life, he is a blase fellow ; heartless,
false; without a single generous sentiment or manly
aim ; he has —

" No God, no heaven, in the wide world.

14-1

CHAPTER XIII.
BREACH OF PROMISE CASES.

EVERY now and then, while the courts sit at Westmin-
ster, the general public derives an immense amount of
entertainment from what are described as breach of
promise cases. It is true there is a wonderful sameness
about them. The defendant is amorous, and quotes a
great deal of poetry. The court vastly enjoys the pe-
rusal of his letters, and the papers quote them entire and
unabridged. The lady suffers much, and the public
sympathies are decidedly with her. Of course there
are some atrocious cases, for which the men who figure
in them cannot be punished too severely ; but as a rule,
we do think the men have the worst of it. A young
man is thrown into the company of an attractive young
female ; they both have little to do at the time, and na-
turally fall in love. She has as much to do with the
matter as he, and yet, if he begins to think that he can-
not keep a wife — that the marriage will not promote the
happiness of the parties concerned — that the affair was
rash, and had better be broken off — he is liable to an

142 BREACH OF PROMISE CASES.

action for breach of promise. Such cases are constantly
occurring. The jury being decidedly romantic — think-
ing love in a cottage to be Elysium — forgetting the
vulgar saying that when poverty comes in at the door
love flys out of the window — mark their sense of the
enormity of the defendant's conduct in refusing to make
an imprudent marriage, by awarding to the lady sub-
stantial damages.

Now, we can understand how English jurymen —
generally men with marriageable daughters, can easily
make up their minds to give damages in such cases, but
we more than question the invariable justice of such a
course. When affection has died out, we can conceive
no greater curse than a marriage ; yet either that must
be effected, or the jury will possibly agree to damages
that may ruin the defendant for life. Tin's we deem
bad, nor do we think that a woman should always have
before her the certainty that the promise given in that
state of mind, which poets describe as brief insanity, an
amiable jury will consider as an equivalent to an I.O.U.
to any amount they please. We do protest against con-
founding a legal promise to marry with a promise to
pay the bearer on demand £1000. We rather fear that
this distinction is likely to be overlooked, not but that
occasionally an action for breach of promise has a very
happy effect. It serves as a moral lesson to ardent
youths of an amorous disposition. It also furnishes the
broken-hearted and forsaken fair with a dowry, which
has been known to purchase her a husband in almost as

BREACH OF PROMISE CASES. 143

good a state of preservation as the gentleman who was
to have borne that honoured name. All that we find
fault with is the number of such cases.

A gay deceiver is no enviable character for any
respectable man to wear. No man of mental or moral
worth would voluntarily assume it. But a spinster
coming to a court of justice, and saying to the defend-
ant, " You have taken my heart, give me your purse,"
is no very desirable position for a woman, though she
may have the fortitude and strength of mind of a Mrs.
Caudle herself. At any rate, the legal view of woman
is very different to the poetical one, and for ourselves
we infinitely prefer the latter. The view of the jury is,
that a woman not marrying a man who has evidently no
love for her, or he would not have married another, is to
the plaintiff an injury — we think it is a happy escape —
and an injury which deepens as the courtship lengthens.
The jury reasons that the plaintiff, Mary Brown, is as
good-tempered a girl as ever lived — that provided she
could but marry she did not care who made her his wife.
The position of the sexes is reversed, and the woman
sings —

" How happy could I be with either,
Were t'other dear charmer away."

According to the jury, if Jones had not married Mary
Brown, Jenkins would — consequently hers is a double
loss. So that if a woman reaches the ripe age of thirty,
by this arithmetic she is more wronged than she would
have been had she been a blooming lass of twenty. In

144 BREACH OF PROMISE CASES.

the same manner there is a delicate sliding-scale for
defendants in such cases. A bridegroom well-made and
well-to-do has to pay no end of sovereigns for the
damage he has done ; while a short time since, a defend-
ant who had been attacked with paralysis was let off
for £50. Woman, in this view of the case, is as dan-
gerous as a money-lender or a shark. Byron tells us—

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart —

'Tis woman's whole existence."

•

But our modern juries give us a very different reading.
We prefer, however, to abide by the old.

Most undoubtedly to win the affections of a woman
and then desert her is a crime — but it is of a character
too ethereal to be touched by human law, If the wo-
man's heart be shattered by the blow, no amount of
money -compensation can heal the wound, and a woman
of much* worth and of the least delicacy would shrink
from the publicity such cases generally confer on all the
parties interested in them. But if the principle be
admitted, that disappointment in love can be atoned for
by the possession of solid cash — if gold can heal the
' heart wounded by the fact that its love has been re-
pelled— that its confidence has been betrayed — we do
not see why the same remedy should not be within the
reach of man. And yet this notoriously is not the
case. When anything of the sort is tried the unhappy
plaintiff seldom gets more than a farthing damages.
Besides, what upright, honourable man would stoop for

BREACH OF PROMISE CASES. 145

a moment to such a tiling; and yet, in spite of all
modern enlightmeut, we maintain that the injury of a
breach of promise on the part of a woman is as great as
that on the part of a man. In the morning of life men
have been struck down by such disappointments, and
through life have been blasted as the oak by the light-
ning's stroke. With Ms heart gone — demoralised, the
man has lived to take a fearful revenge for the first
offence, possibly to become a cold cynic — sceptical of
man's honour and woman's love. Yet breach of promise
cases are not resorted to by men, and we cannot con-
gratulate our fair friends on the fact that so many of
them come into courts of law as plaintiffs in such cases.
Bachelors will fear that, after all, it is true that —

" Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair."

And the result will be that while the more impetuous
of us will commit ourselves at once, and come within
the clutches of law, the more cool and cunning will
excite hopes, which deferred will make sick the heart,
and inspire an affection which may exist but to torment
the heart in which it had its birth. Ay, beneath such,
mental grief the beauty and blessedness of life may
vanish, never to return, and yet all the while he who
did the deed may defy the power of human law.

Some letters which have recently appeared in the
Manchester Examiner may be taken as evidence that
these breach of promise cases interfere very materially

L

146 BREACH OF PEOMISE CASES.

with marriages. In the immediate neighbourhood of
Manchester the question, Why don't the men propose ?
appears to have excited considerable interest. In that
busy region men fall in love and get married, and have
families, and are gathered to their fathers, just as do the
rest of her Majesty's subjects in other parts of the
United Kingdom. But it seems the Lancashire witches
are many of them still on their parent's hands. Pater-
familias gets anxious. Deeply revolving the question
under the signature of " A Parnily Man," he sends the
following letter to the Editor of the journal alluded to —
" Sir, Your cosmopolitan journal/' he writes to the
Editor, "must have many readers interested in the
question ' Why don't the men propose ? ' It would be
dangerous to say I have found the entire solution to this
enigma, for fear of disclosing a mare's nest ; but I will
warrant that one of the most powerful causes of the
shyness of men in matters matrimonial, is the frequency
of breach of promise prosecutions. A lady may be
quite justified in prosecuting the man who has deceived
her, but is she wise in doing so ? Or if acting wisely
for herself, does she not lower the character of her sex ?
Men think so, depend upon it. Your wavering, un-
decided, fastidious bachelor is a great newspaper reader,
and devours breach of promise cases, and after reading
that Miss Tepkins has obtained so many hundred pounds'
damages against Mr. Topkins, soliloquises : — 'Humph 1
It seems, then, that the best salve for a wounded heart is
gold. Bah ! women only marry for a home. It is clear

BREACH OP PROMISE CASES. 147

the woman is the only gainer, else why estimate her
disappointment at so many hundred pounds ? She gives
a man nothing for his promise to marry but her heart
(if that), and how much is if worth ? What recompense
can he get from her should she steal back the heart she
professes to have given him ! I'll take jolly good care I
never make a promise of marriage to a woman (which
means a bond for so many hundred or thousand pounds).
No ; if I marry, I marry ; but catch me promising/
And thus, for fear of being trapped into committing
himself, he avoids the society of women (where he might
learn not only to really love, but to see the sophistry of
his reasoning), and eventually settles down into old ba-
chelorhood. What do the ladies say to this ? Don't let
them think I am a crusty old bachelor. Heaven forfend !
I protest my supreme admiration of the fair sex, and had
better say I am, A FAMILY MAN."

" An unmarried young girl " replies : " Sir, In look-
ing over your valuable paper of to-day, I saw a letter
headed, ' Why do not the men propose ? ' which I read
with great interest, as I found that the writer, although
of the opposite sex, was of the same opinion as myself, in
regard to ladies prosecuting their late lovers for breach
of promise of marriage. I do- think it shows in them a
mean spirit of revenge, of which a lady should not be
guilty. It certainly does look as if they thought more
of a shelter, a name, and a ring, than they do of a com-
fortable home and a loving and affectionate husband. I
do not think it wise of them, as it must lower themselves

L 2

148 BREACH OF PROMISE CASES.

and all their sex in the estimation of the other sex. Be-
sides, it does not speak much of their love for their lovers,
for you know love hides many faults. I have never been
deceived by any man, and I hope I never may, but the
best advice I can give to my poor deceived sisters is to
try and forget their faithless swains, and leave them to
the stings and reflections of their own consciences, which
will be a far greater punishment to them than parting
with thousands of gold and silver. Let them be thank-
ful that they have shown themselves in their true colours
before they had entered on a life of unhappiness and
misery, feeling assured that the man who could deceive
a fond, loving woman is a man of no principle at all.
For my own part, I would scorn the man who ever
proved false to a woman, — I would not trust him even in
business." After this condemnation by a woman, let us
trust we shall hear less for the future of breach of promise
cases*

149

CHAPTER XIV.
COMMERCIAL LONDON.

IN the London Bankruptcy Court, at times, melancholy
revelations are made — revelations which, indeed, do
" point a moral," though they can hardly be said " to
adorn a tale." Too generally the manifestations are the
same — the hastening to be rich, which to so many has
been a snare — the vulgar attempt to keep up appearances
and impose on the world — the recklessness and want
of honour and principle which prevail where we should
least have expected it, in the middle classes, who, as the
heart and core of the nation, at times are apt to be too
indiscriminately eulogised. Last week an illustration of
what we mean occurred. It came out in evidence that a
bankrupt had goods from a London wholesale house, not
for his legitimate trade, but merely that, by their sale at
less than cost price, funds might be provided for the
passing exigencies of the hour. These goods were not
unpacked, but at once sent up to a London auctioneer
and sold. Nor, it seems, was this an isolated case — the
custom is a common one ; it is but what takes place

150 COMMERCIAL LONDON.

every day. Again, a tradesman is in difficulties — he
goes to his principal creditor, who says, "Well you
must not stop yet — you must try and reduce my
debt first," — goods are ordered from Manchester or
Birmingham — and, perhaps without being unpacked,
taken to the warehouse of the London creditor — the
tradesman then applies to the Bankruptcy Court, and,
as his books are well kept, a sine qua non with the
Commissioners — and, as the principal creditor makes
things as smooth as possible, the man gets a first-class
certificate and begins again. Bill discounters tell you
of the number of forged bills which pass through their
hands, and which are sure to be taken up when due.
Even the oldest and proudest firms are not free from
shame. My readers need not that I remind them of
the conduct of Gurney, Over end, & Co. with reference
to the forged spelter warrants. A city lawyer, a man of
considerable practice and experience, once assured me he
did not believe there was such a thing as commercial
morality — but we must hope that he had seen so much
of the dark side, as to forget that there was a bright
side at all, but that the true feeling in the city is not of
the highest character is evident if we recall the sympathy
displayed toward the directors of the Royal British Bank
— and again exhibited in the case of Strachan and Sir
John Dean Paul, or remember the ridiculous manifes-
tations of the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange and
Mincing Lane, of which Tom Sayers was the embarrassed
subject. How wide-spread was the delirium of the

COMMERCIAL LONDON. 151

railway mania — what rascalities have been laid bare
by the bursting of some of our insurance and other
companies. Take that list just published by Mr.
Spachman, Jun., of the losses sustained by public
companies through the inadequate system of the audit
of accounts. The list is short, but not sweet.

" The Royal British Bank.— Stopped payment in 1856. The
failure was caused by making advances to directors and others on
improper and insufficient securities. Capital, £200,000 ; deposits,
£540,000; on which 15s. in the pound has been returned; defi-
ciency, 5s. in the pound ; £135,000 ; total, £335,000.

"The Tipperary Bank. — Eailure caused by the frauds of
Sadleir. Accounts were wilfully falsified. Capital, £500,000;
deposits, £700,000 ; total, £1,200,000. The whole has been lost.

" The London and Eastern Bank. — In this case the notorious
Colonel Waugh appropriated to himself an amount equal to the
whole paid-up capital of the bank, and has since absconded and
set his creditors at defiance. The loss exceeds £250,000.

" The Crystal Palace Company. — The frauds of Robson, com-
mitted by tampering with the transfer-books, entailed a loss of
£100,000.

" The Great Northern Railway Company. — Redpath's frauds,
committed in a similar manner to Robson's. The auditors here
were greatly at fault, as I understand that dividends were paid on
a larger amount of stock than had been issued. Loss, £250,000.

" The Union Bank of London. — The frauds just discovered,
committed by the head cashier, William George Pullinger,
by means of a fictitious pass-book, representing the account
between the Union Bank and the Bank of England. The frauds
are said to have extended over a period of five years, and with
a proper check in the audit, ought to have been detected in the
first half-year."

152 COMMERCIAL LONDON.

The men who did these things — the Redpaths, and
Sadleirs, and Colonel Waughs — were men known and
respected, be it remembered, in London life.

The Times says our law is worthy a nation of savages.
We have a great deal to do yet, just remember the Hudson
testimonial. There were our merchant princes, men of in-
tegrity, of talent, of skill — men who have made the name
of British merchant a term of honour as far as our flag can
reach. If London wished to reward successful industry,
it might have looked amongst them. In this great city
there was more than one lord of thousands, who came
here with hardly a penny in his pocket, or shoes on his
feet. London might have raised a testimonial to one of
them; and had it done so, every unfledged clerkling and
embryo Rothschild would have glowed as he saw how
industry, and wealth, and honour, went hand in hand.
With what delight would the young aspirant for wealth
have returned to the study of those refreshing maxims
in ethics which grandmammas so zealously impress upon
the juvenile mind, and of which the British public are not
a little fond. But a testimonial was given to Mr. Hudson
for none of these things. It was not for honesty, or indus-
try, or worth, that he was rewarded. It was simply for
speculation — for a course of conduct utterly hostile to
legitimate business, which has made many a decent
tradesman a bankrupt, and which has turned many an
lionest man into a knave. England stamped with its
approval a system the morality of which is somewhat
questionable. It bade the young man eschew the dulness

COMMEKCIAL LONDON. 15$

of the counter and the office for the magic wand of
speculation. It passed by the industrious merchant, the
philanthropist, the patriot, to worship the golden calf, as
did the Hebrews of old.

Eighteen hundred years back, on the plains of Pales-
tine, appeared a carpenter's son, with a divine mission but
a human heart. He preached no cash gospel — He was
no prophet in the eyes of the rich. He had His testi-
monial— He reaped it in the bad man's deadly hate.
Alas ! the Hebrew nature is the true aud universal one.
In Mr. Hudson's, there is the testimonial of the rich —
for the Christ, and those who would follow in His steps,
there is the thorny path and the open tomb. Let us
not imagine that we are one whit better than the Hebrew.
The Hudson testimonial proves a common paternity.
Gold has still more charms than God. As Mr. Bright,
if not in so many words, but in spirit, says, " Perish
Savoy, rather than not trade with Prance," so the Lon-
don merchant and tradesman ignore too often honour
and conscience, and morality, for vulgar gain.

It requires great philosophy to get over the effects of
City Life. " Let any one," says Addison, " behold the
kind of faces he meets as soon as he passes Cheapside
Conduit, and you see a deep attention and a certain
feeble sharpness in every countenance; they look
attentive, but their thoughts are engaged on mean pur-
poses." This feeling is perpetuated. Addison remarks
of a gentleman of vast estate, whose grandfather was a
trader, "that he is a very honest gentleman in his

154 COMMERCIAL LONDON.

principles, but cannot for his life talk fairly; he is
heartily sorry for it, but .he cheats by constitution, and
overreaches by instinct." I heard of such a one the
other day — A, a city merchant, married his daughter to
B. A proposed that A and B should stock the cellar
of the young couple with v.'ine — B agreed — A purchased
the wine — got a discount — and charged B full price for
his share — yet A was rich as Croesus. I have seen this
grasping displayed by city boys. The writer was once
accosted by some little children with a request that he
would contribute something towards a " grotto/'' on his
declining any assistance, he was politely informed that
he was no good, as he had " got no money."

London abounds with Montagu Tiggs, and a
genuine article of any kind in any trade, if by any
possibility it can be adulterated, by painful experience
we know it, is utterly impossibly to buy. In trade,
words have long ceased to represent things. We need
not dwell at length on the wrong thus inflicted on the
community at large, all feel the minor evils resulting
from such conduct, and occasionally we hear of sickness
induced, or of life lost, — and for what? merely that
Brown may get an extra farthing on the rascally rubbish
he sells as the genuine article. I fear these are not
times in which we may argue for the abolition of death
punishments. Such things as these sadly teach us that
in London commercial morality is in danger of under-
going gradual demoralisation — that we are in danger of
becoming absorbed in the pursuit of material wealth,

COMMERCIAL LONDON. 155

careless of the price it may cost — that our standard of
morality is not now as it ought to be in a city that
boasts its Christian life and light, and that from London

the evil circulates all over the British realm.

*

In proof of this, we may appeal to the occurrences
of every day. Our great cities are shadowed over by
the giant forms of vice and crime. Like a thick cloud,
ignorance, dense and dark, pervades the land. Ascending-
higher to the well-to-do classes, we find bodily comfort
to be the great end of life ; we find everything that can
conduce to its realization is understood — that the priests
and ministers of the sensual are well paid — that a good
cook, like a diamond, has always value in the market.
M. Soyer, as cook, in the Reform Club, pocketed, we
believe, £800 a year. Hood, in the dark days of his life,
when weakened by the fierce struggle with the world and
its wants, became the prey of the spoiler, and would have
died of starvation had not Government granted him a
pension. Many a man, in whose breast genius was a
presence and a power has been suffered to pine and
starve; but who ever heard of a cook dying of
starvation ? How is it, then, that such is the case, that
so much is done for the body, and so little for the mind?
that at this time the teacher of spiritual realities can but
at best scrape together as much salary as a lawyer's
clerk ? We are not speaking now of wealthy fellows who
repose on beds of roses, but of the busy earnest men who
from the pulpit, or the press, or the schoolmaster's desk,
proclaim the morality and truth without which society

156 COMMERCIAL LONDON.

would become a mass of corruption and death. How is
it that they are overlooked, and that honour is paid to
the soldier who gives up his moral responsibility, and
does the deviFs work upon condition that food and
raiment be granted him — to mere wealth and rank — to
what is accidental rather than to what is true and valuable
in life ? The truth is our civilization is hardly worthy
of the name ? We may say, in the language of Scripture,
we have not attained, neither are we already perfect. We
have but just seen the dim grey of morn, and we boast
that we bask in the sunshine of unclouded day. Our
commercial morality brands our civilization with a voice
of thunder, as an imposture and a sham.

Undoubtedly we are a most thinking, rational, sober,
and religious people. It is a fact upon which we rather
pride ourselves. It is one of which we are firmly con-
vinced, and respecting which we are apt to become some-
what garrulous, and not a little dull. On this head we
suffer much good-natured prosing in ourselves and others.
Like the Pharisees of old, we go up into the temple and
thank God that we are not rationalists, like the Germans,
or infidels, like the French. We are neither Turks nor
Papists, but, on the contrary, good honest Christian men.
It may be that we are a little too much given to boasting —
that we are rather too fond of giving our alms before
men — that when we pray, it is not in secret and when the
door is shut, but where the prayer can be heard and the
devotion admired; but we are what we are — and we
imagine we get on indifferently well. We might, pos-

COMMERCIAL LONDON. 157

sibly, be better — certainly we might be worse ; but, as it
is, we are not particularly dissatisfied, and have ever, on
our faces, a most complacent smirk, testifying so strongly,
to our pleasing consciousness, of the many virtues we
may happen to possess, but in spite of all this we need
a considerable increase and improvement as regards
whas is called commercial moralitv.

158

CHAPTER XV.
LONDON GENTS.

THE newspapers, a few years since, contained an
instance of folly such as we seldom meet with, even in
this foolish generation. Two young men — gents, we
presume — one Sunday evening promenading Regent
Street, the admired of all beholders, met two young
ladies of equally genteel manners, and equally fashion-
able exterior. It is said,

"When Greek meet Greek, then comes the tug of war."

In this case, however, the adage was reversed. The
encounter, so far from being hostile, was friendly in the
extreme. Our gay Lotharios, neither bashful nor pru-
dent, learned that their fascinating enchantresses were
the daughters of a Count, whose large estates were
situated neither in the moon, nor in the New Atlantic,
nor in the " golden Ingies," nor in the lands remote,
where a Gulliver travelled or a Sinbad sailed, but in
Prance itself. That they had come to England, bringing
with them simply their two hundred pounds a quarter,
that they might, in calm retirement — without the

LONDON GENTS. 159

annoyances to which their rank, if known, would sub-
ject them — judge for themselves what manner of men
we were. The tale was simple, strange, yet certainly
true. Ladies of charming manners, and distinguished
birth — young — lovely — each with two hundred pounds
a quarter — cast upon this great Babylon, without a
friend — no man with the heart of an Englishman could
permit such illustrious strangers to wander unprotected
in our streets. Accordingly an intimacy was commenced
— letters written behind the counter, but dated from the
Horse Guards, signed as if the composer were a peer of
the realm, were sent in shoals to Poley-place. The
result was, that after our B-egent Street heroes were
bled till no more money could be had, the secret was
discovered, and they found themselves, not merely
miserably bamboozled, but a laughing-stock besides.

But this tale has a moral. Ellain — he of the ill-
spelt letters and the Horse Guards — was a shopman
somewhere in Piccadilly. No person of any education
could have been taken in by so trumpery a tale. Did
the young men in our shops have time for improvement,
could they retire from business at a reasonable hour,
could they be permitted to inform and strengthen the
mind, such a remarkable instance of folly as that to
which we have alluded could not possibly occur.

The gent of the Regent Street style, of whom poor
Wright used to sing to an Adelphi audience, was
evidently a very badly-dressed and ill-bred-fellow in
in spite of the fact that lu's vest was of the last cut, that

160 LONDON GENTS.

his tile was faultless, that his boots were ditto, and that
none could more gracefully

" puff a cigar."

The gents of to-day are the same. I was amused by
hearing of a party of them, connected with one of the
city houses, who went into the country one Easter
Monday to enjoy themselves; they did enjoy themselves,
as all young fellows should, thoroughly, but from their
enjoyment they were recalled to a sense of dignity, by a
characteristic remark of one of them, as he saw passers
by, "Hush, hush!" he exclaimed, "They will think
we are retail." A writer in the Builder remarking the
degeneracy of regular cocknies attributes it to the want
of good air, the expensive nature of a good education,
the sedentary employment of many of them. And no
doubt these reasons are the true ones, and of consider-
able force. Well might Coleridge anticipate for his
son as prosperous career as compared with his own.

" I was reared

In the great city, pent 'mid cloister dim,
And saw naught lovely but the sky and stars ;
But thou, my babe, shall wander in the breeze,
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountains ; beneath the clouds
Which image in their arch both lakes and shores,
And mountain crags, so shall thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds unchangeable,
Of that eternal language which thy God utters."

This is true, and hence, let us judge leniently of the
lad living within the sound of Bow Bells. Nature is

LONDOX GENTS. 161

the best and truest teacher a man can have — and it is little
of nature that the cockney sees, or hears, and feels. He
goes to Richmond, but, instead of studying the finest
panorama in the world, he stupifies himself with doubtful
port ; he visits the Crystal Palace, but it is for the sake
of the lobster-salad ; he runs down to Greenwich, not
to revel in that park, beautiful still in spite of the attacks
of London on its purity, but to eat white-bait ; he takes,
it may be, the rail or the steamboat to Gravesend, but
merely that he may dance with milliners at Tivoli. The
only idea of a garden to a London gent, is a place where
there is dancing, and drinking, and smoking going on.
And this is a type of his inbred depravity. He has no
rational amusements. In the winter time shut up the
casinos, and do away with the half-price at the theatres,
and the poor fellow is hors de combat, and has nothing
left him but suicide or delirium tremens. Literary and
Scientific Institutions don't answer in London — even a
place like the "Whittington Club, where any respectable
young man belonging to the middle classes may find a
home, is by no means (so I have understood) a success.
Tom Moore says there is not in the world so stupid
or boorish a congregation as the audience of an English
play-house. I fear there is some truth in this as regards
London. The regular cockney is not a fine sample of
the genus homo, in the first place he is very conceited,
and when a man is that, it is little that will do him good ;
in the second place, he thinks only of business and
pleasure, he lives well, dresses well, goes lo church once

M

162 LONDON GENTS.

on the Sunday, and laughs at new-fangled opinions, and
wonders why people grumble, and believes all he reads
in the Times. If you want to start any successful
agitation you must begin it in the provinces. The
Anti-Corn Law League had its seat at Manchester, the
Heform agitation had its head quarters at Birmingham.
The wisest thing done by the United Kingdom- Alliance,
was to plant themselves in Manchester rather than in
London. Sydney Smith said it required a severe sur-
gical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke,
it is almost as difficult to get a Londoner to under-
stand anything new ; he is slow to recognise worth or
virtue, and if any of his own connection rise, he exclaims,
with the writing-master, who would not believe Newton
was a good mathematician, "the fool, he is an hour
over a sum in the rule of three."

The truth is we are a city of shopkeepers ; and if
intellectual pursuits be denied to those engaged in trade,
the consequence must be the popular opinion must be
that of those who know little else than the business of
the shop, and as a consequence a curse will go forth to
the remotest corner of the land. Bigotry, prejudice,
fasehood, and passion will be rampant and rife, and
truth and reason will be trampled under foot. Just as
manhood is forming, just as the moral and intellectual
parts of our nature are developing themselves, just as
life becomes a reality, and glimpses of the work to
be done, and of the blessedness of doing it, catch and
charm the youthful eye, the victim is compelled to stand

LONDON GENTS. 163

behind the counter, and is threatened with beggary if he
fail practically to remember that the pursuit of money,
to the utter exclusion of aught higher and nobler, is the
end for which life is given man. No wonder such a
system fearfully avenges itself — that the sensual is
exalted — that we meet so little in accordance with prin-
ciple and truth. Debarred from intellectual pursuits,
what awaits our young men but frivolous excitement ?
Ignorant, with the feelings of our common nature unna-
turally aroused — with minds enfeebled by lack of healthy
exercise — our middle class — the class perhaps the most
important in our land — stands by society in its conven-
tionalism and falsehood and wrong ; and we mourn and
sigh over giant ills, that we cannot grapple with effectually
because we go the wrong way to work.

A great want of our age is education for the middle
classes. We want to have them taught to believe in
something else than the shop or the desk. We want
them to believe the mind as fully entitled to their care
as the body, and the money-bag but poor and impotent
compared with the well-spent life. We would publish
the all-important truth — a truth that shall live and
fructify when the great city in which we write shall have
become a desert-waste — the truth that man was made in
the image of his maker, and that the heart that beats
within is capable of divinity itself. We may have drawn
in dark colours our national state. We fear the picture
is but too true ; and that till something be done to burst
the bonds of habit, and educate the youth in our shops,

AI 2

164 LONDON GEXTS.

the picture will continue to be true. We write not to
deprecate the land of our birth ; it is one dear to us by
every remembrance of the past and hope for the future.
Because we thus cling to it do we deplore and expose
what we deem to be wrong, and that our social condition
may be healthy, that our civilization may be complete
that our faith may be a living leavening power, do we
ask the emancipation of the sons and daughters of trade
— that that long-looked-for hour may quickly come.

165

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS.

IN spite of Lord Palrnerston's injudicious attempt to
check the rifle movement in its infancy, there can be no
doubt now but that it is a complete success. The appeal
to the martial spirit — more or less strong in the hearts
of all Englishmen — has been most cheerfully responded
to. Something of the kind was evidently required to
excite the energies and to occupy the leisure hours of
our numerous youth. We are always in danger of
becoming too peaceable a folk. Our avocations, all of
a mercantile or professional character, — our amusements,
less out-door, and more sedentary, than ought to be the
case, — the very humane spirit which pervades all English
society, — our enormous wealth ; all tend to make us
peaceably disposed. None can be alarmed at our warlike
demonstrations. Ho nation in Europe need fear a British
invasion. No foreign government can possibly pretend that
the British government harbours designs of active hostility
against any European power. Indeed, the naturally and
necessarily peaceful intentions of this country are can-

166 THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS.

didly acknowledged by the most eminent men in Prance
itself. Michel Chevalier, in his account of a recent visit
to this country, has done ample justice to our moderation,
and to our desire to be at peace with all the world.

We may, then, view the increase of our volunteer
riflemen without any alarm — nay, rather with a con-
siderable amount of pleasure. People connected with
fast life, tell us that the falling off of the attendance of
young men at the casinos is something very remarkable ;
the reason of this is attributed to the fact that they are
engaged and interested in their drill. It is with unmixed
satisfaction, that we see, day by day, the long columns
of the Times filled with the names of the towns which
have just joined the movement, and the proceedings of
those which already possess a corps of riflemen. The
Times tells us, that already the force thus raised consists
of 170,000, of whom half nearly are Londoners ; but the
movement, we trust, will continue to be developed for
some time to come. Every young man should join it, as
it gives him healthy recreation, soldier-like habits, and
a feeling that he is a son of our common mother — fine
Old England, the land of the brave and the free. We
are much in the habit of doing our work by proxy.
Shareholders, in companies, leave the management to a
few directors, and learn, too late, to curse their folly.
Institutions of the most excellent character, in the hands
of a few become perverted, and are often real stumbling-
blocks in the way of reform. So it is with our army and
navy. We pay for them handsomely, we intrust their

THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS. 167

management to a few, and then we wake up to find that
we have been trusting on a broken reed ; that our guns,
and muskets, are old-fashioned ; that routine and
favouritism in office are more than a match for the
cleverest of officers and the bravest of men ; and that we
have almost all our work to begin over again. Now,
one great advantage of the rifle movement is that it
throws us back upon ourselves — that it teaches us all to
feel that we have a personal stake in the defence of the
country — that it recalls the martial energy which we are
fast in danger of losing, and makes all panic-fear for the
future impossible. Surely, also, the moral effect of all
this on Europe must be great. The nation that arms
itself is always respected. It is the French army that
makes the name of the French Emperor so famous in all
parts of the world. Again, the nation that is always
protected is safe from attack. People do not go to war
with strong states, but weak ones. In the fable, the
wolf quarrels not with the wolf, but the lamb. It ought
not to be so, we freely admit ; but we must take the
world as we find it, and act accordingly. And the morale
of all history is that there is no such safeguard of peace
as the knowledge that a nation has set its house in order,
and is thoroughly prepared for war.

Look back at the olden time, when we triumphed at
Agincourt, Cressy, and Poictiers — when we won for
England her foremost place among the nations of earth.
A writer in the Cambridge Chronicle has collected all
that he can find relative to " The Longbow of the past,

168 THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS.

the Rifle of the future," and done good service by its
republication under the title already given.

There is a muster-roll of the army of Henry V.
preserved among Rymer's imprinted collection in the
British Museum. The Earl of Cambridge appears in it
with a personal retinue of 2 knights, 57 esquires, and
160 horse archers. The Duke of Clarence brought in
his retinue 1 earl, 2 bannerets, 14 knights, 222 esquires,
and 720 horse archers. The roll includes 2,536 men-
at-arms, 4,128 horse archers, 38 arblesters (cross-bow-
men), 120 miners, 25 master gunners, 50 servitor gun-
ners, a stuffer of bacinets, 12 armourers, 3 kings of
arms. A Mr. Nicholas Colnet, a physician, also brought
3 archers, 20 surgeons, an immense retinue of labourers,
artisans, fletchers, bowyers, wheelwrights, chaplains, and
minstrels, root-archers were not enumerated, but the
total number of effective soldiers amounted to 10,731.
These were the men who gained the field at Agincourt.
Philip de Comines acknowledged that English archery
excelled that of every other nation, and Sir John For-
tesque states " that the might of the Bealme of England
standyth upon archers." In the reign of Henry II. the
English conquests in Ireland were principally owing, it
is recorded, to the use of the long bow. The victory
gained over the Scots, by Edward I., in 1298, at the
great battle of Falkirk, was chiefly won by the power of
the English bowmen. In 1333 Edward III., with small
loss, gained a signal victory at Halidown Hill, near
Berwick, when attacked by the Scots under the Earl of

THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS. 169

Douglas. Speed gives, from Walsmgham, the following
description of the battle : — " The chief feat was wrought
by the English archers, who first with their stiff, close,
and cruel storms of arrows made their enemies' footmen
break ; and when the noble Douglas descended to the
charge with his choicest bands, himself being in a most
rich and excellently tempered armour, and the rest sin-
gularly well-appointed, — the Lord Percy's archers making
a retreat did withal deliver their deadly arrows so lively,
so courageously, so grievously, that they ran through
the men-at-arms, bored the helmets, beat their lances to
the earth, and easily shot those who were more slightly
armed through and through/' Gibbon notes the sin-
gular dread with which the English archers filled their
enemies in the crusades, and states, " that at one time
Richard, with seventeen knights and 300 archers, sus-
tained the charge of the whole Turkish and Saracen
army." In the reign of Richard II., in 1377, the Isle
of Wight was invaded by the French, who landed in
great force at Pranche-Yille (called afterwards New-
town), which they destroyed, and then directed their
march to Carisbrooke Castle, for the purpose of taking
that stronghold. The news of the invasion soon spread
throughout the island, and no time was lost in mustering
the forces which it possessed. These forces consisted
chiefly of archers, who so admirably posted themselves in
ambush, that they rendered a good account of the ad-
vanced division of the French. The other division of
the enemy had commenced an attack on Carisbrooke

170 THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS.

Castle, when the victorious archers advanced to its relief,
and soon cleared the island of the intruders. The battle
of Shrewsbury, in 1403, was one of the most desperate
encounters ever seen in England. The archers on both
sides did terrible execution. Henry IV. and the Prince
of Wales on one side, and Earl Douglas with Henry
Hotspur, son of the Earl of Northumberland, on the
other, performed prodigies of valour. At length, Hot-
spur being slain and Douglas taken, Henry remained
master of the field.

The bow was the most ancient and universal of all
weapons. Our ancestors in this island, at a very early
period of their liistory, used the bow, like other nations,
for two purposes. In time of peace it was an im-
plement for hunting and pastime; and in time of war it'
was a formidable weapon of offence and defence. It was
not till after the battle of Hastings that our Anglo-
Saxon forefathers learned rightly to appreciate the merit
of the bow and the cloth-yard shaft. Though a general
disarming followed that event, the victor allowed the
vanquished Saxon to carry the bow. Tke lesson taught
by the superiority of the Norman archers was not for-
gotten. Prom that period the English archers began to
rise in repute, and in course of time proved themselves,
by their achievements in war, both, the admiration and
terror of their foes, and excelled the exploits of other
nations. The great achievements of the English bow-
men, which shed lustre upon the annals of the nation,
extended over a period of more than five centuries, many

THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS. 171

years after the invention and use of firearms. All the
youth and manhood of the yeomanry of England were
engaged in the practice of the long bow. England,
therefore, in those times possessed a national voluntary
militia, of no charge to the government, ready for the
field on a short notice, and well skilled in the use of
weapons. Hence sprung the large bodies of efficient
troops which at different periods of English history, in
an incredibly short time, were found ready for the service
of their country. These men Avere not a rude, undis-
ciplined rabble, but were trained, disciplined men, every
one sufficiently master of his weapon to riddle a steel
corslet at five or six score paces ; or, in a body, to act
with terrific effect against masses of cavalry ; while most
of them could bring down a falcon on the wing by a
bird-bolt, or, with a broad arrow, transfix the wild deer
in the chase. There is little at the present day in
England to afford any adequate idea of the high import-
ance, the great skill, and the distinguished renown of
the English archers. Some few places still retain names
which tell us where the bowmen used to assemble for
practice, — as Shooter's Hill, in Kent ; Newington Butts,
near London ; and St. Augustine's Butts, near Bristol.
Many of the noble and county families of Great Britain
and Ireland have the symbols of archery charged on
their escutcheons ; as, for instance, the Duke of Norfolk,
on his bend, between six crosslets, bears an escutcheon
charged with a demi-lion pierced in the mouth with an
arrow, within a double tressure flory and counterflory.

172 THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS.

This was an addition to the coat of his Grace's ancestor,
the Earl of Surrey, who commanded at Hodden Field, in
1513. There are also existing families which have de-
rived their surnames from the names of the different
crafts formerly engaged in the manufacture of the bow
and its accompaniments ; as, for instance, the names of
Bowyer, Fletcher, Stringer, Arrowmith, &c. If we
refer to our language, there will be found many phrases
and proverbial expressions drawn from or connected with
archery; some suggesting forethought and caution, as
" Always have two strings to your bow;" it being the
custom of military archers to take additional bowstrings
with them into the field of battle ; " Get the shaft-hand of
your adversaries;" "Draw not thy bow before thy arrow
be fixed ;" " Kill two birds with one shaft:1' To make an
enemy's machinations recoil upon himself, they expressed
by saying, " To out-shoot a man in his own bow." In
reference to a vague, foolish guess, they used to say,
"He shoots wide of his mark;" and of unprofitable,
silly conversation, " A fool's bolt is soon shot." The
unready and the unskilful archer did not escape the
censure and warning of his fellows, although he might
be a great man, and boast that he had " A famous bow —
but it was up at the castle" Of such they satirically re-
marked that " Many talked of Robin Hood, who never
shot in his bow" Our ancestors also expressed liberality
of sentiment, and their opinion that merit belonged ex-
clusively to no particular class or locality, by the fol-
lowing pithy expressions, " Many a good bow besides one

THE LONDON VOLUNTEERS. 173

in Chester ;" and "An archer is known lij his aim, and
not ly his arrows."

And what was the result of all this practice with the
bow ? — why, that we never feared invasion. Those were
not limes when old ladies were frightened out of their
night's sleep. Every Englishman was a free and fearless
soldier ; the foe might growl at a distance, but he never
dared to touch our shores — to plunder our cities — to
massacre our smiling babes — and to do outrage worse
than death to our English womanhood ; and so it will
be seen now that the bow has been superseded by the
rifle, when our young lads of public spirit respond to
Tennyson's patriotic appeal, " Form, Riflemen, form ! "

174

CHAPTER XVII.
CRIMINAL LONDON.

A brochure of fifty pages, full of figures and tables, just
issued, contains the criminal statistics of the metropolis,
as shown by the police returns. It is not very pleasant
reading, in any sense, but it no doubt has its value.
We learn from it that last year the police took into cus-
tody 64,281 persons, of whom 29,863 were discharged
by the magistrates, 31,565 summarily disposed of, and
2,853 committed for trial; of the latter number 2,312
were convicted, the rest being either acquitted or not
prosecuted, or in their cases true bills were not found.
About twenty years ago, in 1839, the number taken into
custody rather exceeded that of last year, being 65,965 ;
although since that period 135 parishes, hamlets, and
liberties, with, in 1850, a population of 267,267, have
been added to the metropolitan district, and although
the entire population must have greatly increased in the
interval. These returns exhibits strange variations in
the activity of the police; while last year the appre-
hensions were, as stated, 64,281, in 1857 they amounted

CRIMINAL LONDON. 175

to as much as 79,364. The difference is 15,000, and
of that number in excess, not one-half were convicted,
either summarily or after trial, the rest. forming an excess
in the whole of those discharged by the magistrates. It
is a striking fact that nearly half the number of all
whom the police take into custody are discharged, so
that the discrimination of the police is far from being
on a par with its activity.

Criminal London spends some considerable part of
its time at Newgate, Clerkenwell, Wandsworth, Hollow-
way, and other establishments well-known to fame, and
descriptions of which are familiar to the reader, but a
favourite resort, also, is Portland Goal, which, by the
kindness of Captain Clay, we were permitted, recently,
to inspect. Portland Goal is situated on a neck of land
near Weymouth.

To reach it, the better way is to take a passage
in one of the numerous steamers which ply between
Weymouth and Portland. In half an hour you will
find yourself at the bottom of the chalk hill on
which the prison is built. If you are sound in limb,
and not deficient in wind, in another half hour you
will find yourself at the principal entrance of the
goal. But to get at the Prison is no easy work.
The Captain of the steamer will tell you, you must take
a trap the moment you get on shore, but Jehu will ask
you so long a price as to put all idea of riding quite out
of the question. The people on the island will give you
but little information, and that of rather a contradictory

176 CRIMINAL LONDON.

character. Undoubtedly the better plan is to trust to
your own sense and legs. On our way we met an
officer of the Koyal Navy — a captain, we imagine. Be-
fore us, at a little distance, was what we took to be the
prison, but we were not sure of the fact, and accordingly
asked the gallant officer. We trust he was not a type
of the service. He did not know what that building
was before him : he did not know whether there was a
prison there ; and then he finished by asking us if wre
were one of the officials. If the French do come, let
us hope Her Majesty's fleet will have more acute
officers than our gallant acquaintance ! We arrived at
the principal entrance, notwithstanding the non-success
of our queries with the brave marine, at a quarter to
one. Before we enter, let us look around. What a
place for a man to get braced up in ! What a jolly
thing it would be for many a London Alderman could
he come here for a few months. Just below is the pri-
son, clean, snug, and warm. At our feet is the stupen-
dous Breakwater, within which lie, as we trust they may
ever lie, idle and secure, some of the ships comprising
the Channel Fleet. Here, stealing into the bay like a
bird with white wings, is a convict ship, coming to
bear away to the Bermudas some of the convicts now
shut up within those stone walls. If you look well at
her through the glass you can see her live freight
en board, for she only calls here for some fifty or sixty,
— who, however, have no wish to leave Portland for
harder work and a less healthy climate. Beyond is

CRIMINAL LONDON. 177

Weymouth, and its comfortable hotels — its agreeable
promenade — and with, in summer time, its pleasant
bathing. Right across St. Albyn's Head, and on the
other side the Dorset coast, and straight across some
eighty miles of the salt sea, is Cherbourg, with a break-
water far more formidable than that above which we
stand. It is a clear bright sky above us, and in the
light of the sun the scene is beautiful almost as one of
fairy land.

We ring the bell — hand in, through a window,
our letter of introduction — are ushered into a wooden
cage in which the janitor sits — enter our name in a
book, and sit down. The officers, consisting of about
160 men, exclusive of a small guard of soldiers, are
coming in from dinner. In appearance they somewhat
resemble our Coast-guard, are tall fine men, with very
red faces, and big black bushy whiskers. The prin-
cipal warden came to receive us ; he has been here ever
since the place has been opened, and we could not have
had a better guide, or one more competent to explain
to us the nature of the important works carried on.
And now we have passed into the very prison itself, and
stand surrounded by men who have committed almost
every species of crime. There are some fifteen hundred
of them here from all parts of England; stupid pea-
sants from Suffolk and Norfolk, and clever rascals (these
latter are very troublesome) from London, and Bir-
mingham, and Liverpool, and other busy centres of
industry, and intelligence, and life. Says our informant,

N

178 CRIMINAL LONDON.

We have a good many captains in the army here, and
several merchants, nor are we surprised at the information.
When we entered, the men had just dined, and were
collected in the yard previous to being examined and
walked off in gangs, under the charge of their respective
officers, to work. The gangs consisted of various numbers,
of from fifteen to thirty ; each officer felt each man, to
see that nothing was hidden, and examined his number
to see that it was all right, and as each gang marches
through the gate, the officer calls out the number of the
gang, and the number of men it contains, to the chief
officer, who enters it in his book. As soon as this
operation was over, the gangs inarched out, some to
quarry stones for the Breakwater below; and others,
by far the larger number, to construct the enormous
barricades and fortifications which the Government has
ordered as a defence for that part of the world. The
prisoners who cannot stand this hard work are employed
in mending clothes, in making shoes, in baking, and
brewing, in the school-room, and other offices necessary
in such an enormous establishment. In this latter
employment no less a personage than Sir John Dean
Paul had been occupied till very recently. The scene-
was a busy one; ail around us were convicts — here
quarrying, there employed in the manufacture of tools, or
in carpenters' s or masons' s work — all working well, and
many of them cheerful in spite of the presence of an offi-
cial, and little apparently heeding the sentry standing near
•with loaded gun ready to shoot, if need be, a runaway.

CRIMINAL LONDON. 179

We have heard gentlemen say that at Bermuda and at
Gibraltar, the convicts will not work. All we can say is,
that at Portland they do, and so effectually, as to cost the
country but little more than four or five pounds a year.
Our out door inspection over, we then went over the
sleeping apartments, and the [chapel, and the kitchen,
and laundry, and bakery. The impression left on us
was very favourable. The food is of the plainest, but
most satisfactory character. The allowance for break-
fast is 12 oz. of bread, 1 pint of tea or cocoa. Dinner, 1
pint of soup, 5i oz. of meat, 1 Ib. of potatoes, 6 oz. of
bread or pudding. Supper, 9 oz. of bread, 1 pint of
gruel or tea. The chapel is a handsome building,
capable of containing fifteen hundred people, and the
sleeping apartments were light and airy, and well ven-
tilated. Each cell opens into a corridor, there being a
series of three or four storeys ; each sleeping apartment
can contain from a hundred to five hundred men ; in
each cell there is a hammock, and all that is requisite
for personal cleanliness, besides a book or two which the
convict is allowed to have from the library. Of course
the manner of life is somewhat monotonous. Before
coming to Portland, the prisoners have passed their
allotted time, (generally about nine months), in what is
termed separate confinement, at Pentonville, Millbank,
Preston, Bedford, Wakefield, or some other prison adap-
ted for the first stage of penal discipline. Upon their
reception they are made to undergo medical inspec-
tion, a change of clothes, and are required to bathe;

180 CRIMINAL LONDON.

they are then informed of the rules and regulations of
the prison, and moved to school for examination in edu-
cational attainments, with a view to their correct clas-
sification. Afterwards they receive an appropriate ad-
dress from the chaplain, and are allowed to write their
first letter from Portland to their relations. They are
then put to work, and are made to feel that their future
career depends in some measure on themselves. Thus
there are four classes, and the convict in the best class
may earn as much as two shillings-a-week, which is put
to his credit, and paid him when he becomes free, partly
by a post-office order, payable to him when he reaches
his destination, and partly afterwards. The dress con-
sists of fustian, over which a blue smock frock with
white stripes is thrown. Convicts who are dangerous,
and have maltreated their keepers, instead of a frock
have a coat of a somewhat loud and striking character.
Then, again, a yellow dress denotes that the convict has
attempted to escape ; and further, a blue cloth dress de-
notes that the wearer, engaged as a pointsman, has but
little more time to stay, and has a little more freedom
intrusted to him. In the working days in summer the
prison-bell rouses all hands at a quarter-past five, allow-
ing an hour for washing, dressing, and breakfast. Then
comes morning service in the chapel. They are then
marched off to labour, where they remain till eleven, when
they return to dinner. At half-past twelve they are
again paraded, and dismissed to labour till six. Suppers
are distributed to each cell at half-past six, and at seven

CRIMINAL LONDON. 181

evening service is held in the chapel. The prisoners
then return to their cells. In winter-time they are
recalled from labour at half-past four, prayers are read at
five, and supper is served at six; the prisoners then re-
turn to their cells. At eight all lights must be put out,
and silence reigns in every hall, the slippered night-
guards alone gliding through the long and dimly -lighted
galleries like so many spectres. It may be that sor-
row is wakeful, but it is not so at Portland. If the men
have troubled consciences and uneasy hours, it is when
they are at work, and not during the period allotted to
repose. They are asleep as soon as ever the lights are
put out, and till the bell summons them to labour they
sleep the sleep of the just. Nor can we wonder at it.
There is no sleep so sweet and precious, as that earned
by a long day's work in the open air.

Attendance at chapel and walking exercise in
the open air, are the two great features of the Sun-
day's employment; and, as a further change, we
may mention, each prisoner is allowed half a day's
schooling per week. While at work, of course they
talk together, — it is impossible to prevent that, — and
they choose their companions, and have their friendships
as if they were free ; and even, as in the case of Sir John
Dean Paul, maintain — or endeavour to do so — the social
distinctions which were accorded to them when sup-
posed to be respectable members of respectable society.
Altogether here, as at many a worse place than Portland,
the convicts must work hard, for the contractor depends

182 CRIMINAL LONDON.

on them for the supply of stone which is sent down the
tramway to the Breakwater ; but many of the men at
Portland have been accustomed to hard labour all
their lives. They are chiefly young and able-bodied,
and here they are well cared for and taught. Surely
here, if anywhere, the convict may repent his crimes, and
be fitted to return to society a wiser and a better man !
We cannot exactly say what are the effects of all this ;
but surely the convicts must be better from this separa-
tion from their usual haunts and associates. Portland
Prison is admirably adapted for carrying out a great
experiment in the treatment and improvement of the
criminal classes. It has now been in existence twelve
years, and the experiment hitherto has succeeded. At
any rate, if it is a blunder, it is not a costly one, like
some establishments nearer town.

It is now nearly ten years since transportation to the
colonies ceased to be a punishment for criminal offences.
The Tasmanian and Australian authorities refused to
receive them ; and the government establishment at
Norfolk Island was abandoned, the home government
resolving to make an effort to dispose of the convict
population in some other manner. The convict establish-
ment on the Island of Portland was the first scheme
proposed for the employment and reformation of offenders.
The principal object was to secure a place of confine-
ment for long-term convicts ; the next, to systematically
apply the labour of such convicts to " national works of
importance/' the prosecution of which at once was pro-

CRIMINAL LONDON. 183

Stable, and afforded the means of training tlie convicts
to habits of industry. The Penal Servitude Act was
passed in 1850, and under it the much-condemned ticket
of leave came into operation. It substituted sentences
of penal servitude for all crimes formerly visited by sen-
tences of transportation to a less period than 14 years.
As few of such sentences, comparatively, reached over
that period, the Act practically reduced the transporta-
tion sentences to a mere tithe of what they were before —
the average during the years from 1854 to 1857 not
being more than 235 out of 3200. In 1857 the trans-
portation sentences only amounted to 110, while the
penal servitude sentences were 2474. In that year an
Act was passed with a small proportionate remission of
sentence as a reward for good conduct. The advantages
of the system thus established, were considered to be —
1st, Its deterring effects. 2nd, Its affording encourage-
ment to the convict. 3rd, As giving the means of deal-
ing with refractory convicts ; and 4th, As affording
means of employment to offenders on their discharge.

Portland Prison, as the chief punitive establishment
under this new system, is, of course, most deserving
notice*. In 1857, the total expenditure on this prison
was £48,782. The total value of the labour performed
in the same year was £41,855, which, divided by 1488
(the average number of prisoners), gave £28. 2s. 7d. as
the rate per man. We doubt if the labour in our county
prisons has ever reached the half of this value. Large
numbers of the Portland prisoners have obtained em-

184- CRIMINAL LONDON.

ployinent at harbour and other similar works since their
discharge, and generally their conduct has been satisfac-
tory. The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society regularly
assists the well-behaved convicts in finding employment
on their release from confinement, and that society's
operations have been remarkably successful. Penton-
ville prison has ordinarily from five to six hundred pri-
soners ; while in Milbank the daily average number, in
1857, was about 1100. Parkhurst prison is kept for
boy convicts, of whom the average daily number in 1857,
was 431 ; and Brixton, for females, of whom 784 in all
were received in that year. The Fulham Refuge is an-
other female institution, in which convicts are received
previous to being discharged on license, and in which
they are taught a knowledge of household work, such as
cooking, washing, £c., calculated to improve their chances
of getting employment. Portsmouth, Chatham, Lewes,
and Dartmoor are also used as convict establishments ;
the latter, however, is being gradually given up, as utterly
unfitted for such a purpose, its temperature in winter
somewhat approaching to that of Nova Zembla. It is
difficult to say what are the numbers requiring to be dis-
posed of in these convict prisons in the average of 'years,
but they probably range about 7,000 males and 1,200
females. If the decrease of crime in 1858 continue in
subsequent years, our home prisons will amply suffice for
the reception of our convict population.

185

CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING CABS.

ONE of the most blessed institutions of London is the
cab. I prefer it much to the 'bus — to equestrian exer-
cise— and if I had, which I have not, a carriage of my
own, I dare say I should prefer it even to that. If the-
horse falls down, it is not yours that breaks its knees ; if
the shafts suddenly snap asunder, they are not yours
that are damaged. And you need not be imposed on,
unless you are flat enough to ask cabby his fare, and
then it serves you right. The number of cabs now
licensed in London is 4,500 ; each common cab and the
two horses with the appointments requisite to work it
are estimated to cost not more than £60, so that the
capital engaged is, in round numbers, upwards of
£270,000, provided by upwards of 1,800 small owners.
The waste of the capital committed by this competition
within the field of supply is Visible to the eye, at all
times and all weathers, in full stands, or long files wait-
ing hour after hour, and in the numbers crawling about
the streets looking out for fares. The cost of the keep

186 CONCERNING CABS.

of each horse is estimated at 16s. 4d. per week — the de-
preciation of horse stock is put down at 2s. 6d. per week
each, and of the vehicle at 8s. per week. The market
value of the labour of such a man as the driver of a cab
may be set down in London at 4s. per diern. The stable
rent is at least 10s. per week, per cab and horses, so that
the capital invested for man, horse, and vehicle, may be
set down at more than one shilling per hour lost during
every hour of the twelve that cabs are kept unemployed.
On every cab-stand, where in foul weather as well as fair
a dozen cabs are seen constantly unemployed, the ad-
ministrative economist may see capital evaporating in
worse than waste at a rate of 12s. per hour, £7. 4s. per
diem, or at a rate of between two and three thousand
pounds per annum, to be charged to some one, i.e. the
public. If all were employed, as the usual rate of
driving is six miles per hour, they must be each employed
at least four hours per diem to pay for their keep. If,
however, the cabs were constantly employed daily, at least
three horses must be employed, which would augment
the charge, by that of an additional horse, at the rate of
4d. per hour. A large proportion of the cabs are em-
ployed during the whole 24 hours ; but there are then
two men, a night man and a day man, and three horses.
It is probably greatly below the fact to state that at
least one-third of the cabs are, the week through, unem-
ployed— that is to say, one-third of the capital invested
is wasted, a service for two capitals being competed for
by three, to the inevitable destruction of one. As in

CONCERNING CABS. 187

other cases of competition within the field, efforts are
made by violent manifestations of discontent at the legal
fare, by mendacity, and by various modes of extortion,
to charge upon the public the expense of the wasted
capital. Sometimes it is in the form of a piteous appeal
that the driver or the competitor has been out all day and
has not before had " one single blessed fare." And yet
the legal charge for the frequently wretched service of
the man, horse, and vehicle is, when taken by the hour,
nearly double, and by the mile, nearly treble — when
only two horses per diem are used — its actual prime cost,
which is, when driving at little more than six miles an
hour, 2d. or 3d. per mile, and when waiting, Is. 4d. per
hour. But there is now a cry from the cab proprietors
that this charge of double the prime cost does not pay,
as it probably does not under such a ruinous system, and
an appeal is proposed to parliament for an augmentation
of the fares, but such augmentations, under this prin-
ciple of competition within the field, would only aggra-
vate the evil, for it would -lead to an increased number
of competitors, and instead of there being a competition
of three to do the work of two, there would be a com-
petition of two or more to do the work of one — that is, a
greater waste of capital to be paid for by some one.
Since the reduction of the fares in 1852, the number of
cabs in the metropolis, instead of being reduced, has
been increased from 3297 to 4507 in 1857.

The criminal returns afford melancholy indications
of their moral condition to those conversant with penal

188 CONCERNING CABS.

statistics. Thus, in the police returns we find, under
the head of "Coach and cabmen" — but it is stated by
the police to be chiefly of cabmen — a very heavy list
of offences. In the year 1854 it was 682 ; in the year
before that, 777. The recurring crimes are thus de-
noted :

Apprehensions for

Offences against the Hackney 1853. 1854.

Carriage Act 369 ... 335

Simple larcenies 29 ... 36

Other larcenies 10 ... 12

Common assaults 54 ... 42

„ on the police ... 24 ... 11

Cruelty to animals 57 ... 27

Disorderly characters 15 ... 21

Drunk and disorderly characters ... 66 ... 02

Drunkenness 82 ... 73

Furious driving ... 24 ... 18

In respect to this service of cabs, says a writer — from
whom I have taken these figures, I regret I cannot find

out his name, that I might quote it " the analysed

charges and statistics show that by a properly -conducted
competition by adequate capital for the whole field — for
which, in my view, the chief police or local adminis-
trative authorities ought, as servants of the public, to
be made responsible — service equal to the present might
be obtained at 3d. or 4d. per mile ; or at the present
legal fare of 6d. per mile, a service approaching in con-
dition to that of private carriages, might be insured out
of the waste which now occurs."

CONCERNING CABS. 189

A pleasant way of getting along is that of getting in
a Hansom,, and bidding the driver drive on. A great
improvement, undoubtedly, on the old Hackney coach,
or on that first species of cab — consisting of a gig with.
a very dangerous hood — on one side of which sat the
driver, while on the other was suspended yourself. Now
as you dash merrily along, with a civil driver, a luxurious
equipage, and not a bad sort of horse, little do you think
that you may be driving far further than you intended,
to a dangerous illness and an early grave.

A terrible danger threatens all who live in London, or
who visit it, by means of a custom — which ought not to
be tolerated for an instant — of carrying sick persons in
cabs to hospitals. No doubt the increase of smallpox in
the metropolis may be referred to this source. Put a
case of smallpox into a comfortable cab for an hour, then
send the vehicle into the streets ; first a merchant sits in
it for a quarter of an hour, then a traveller from the rail-
way gets his chance of catching the disease, and so on
for the next week or two. When it takes, the victims
have had no warning of their impending danger, and
wonder where they got it. They in their turn become
new centres of disease, and for the next few weeks they
infect the air they breathe, the houses they inhabit, the
clothing sent to the laundress, and everybody and every-
thing which comes within their influence, and it is im-
possible to say where the infection ceases. The follow-
ing arrangements would easily, cheaply, and effectually
do away with the evil : — 1. Make it penal to let or to

190 CONCERNING CABS.

hire a public vehicle for the conveyance of any person
affected with contagious disease. 2. Every institution
for the reception of contagious disease should undertake
to fetch the patient on receipt of a medical certificate
as to the nature of the case.

Do not be too confidential with cabby, nor ask him
what he charges, nor hold out a handful of silver to him
and ask him to pay himself, nor give him a sovereign in
mistake for a shilling, and delude yourself with the idea
that he will return it. Don't tell him you are in a hurry
to catch the train. I once offered the driver of a Hansom
a shilling for a ride from the Post Office to the Angel,
Islington ; he was so disgusted that he plainly informed
me that if he'd a known I was only going to give him a
shilling, he'd be blessed if he would not have lost the
mail for me. The repeal of the newspaper stamp has
done wonders for cabby. He now takes in his morning
paper the same as any other gentleman. To ride in a
cab is the extent of some people's idea of happiness. I
heard of a clerk who had absconded with some money
belonging to an employer, he had spent it all in charter-
ing a cab, and in riding about in it all day. M.P/s are
much in the habit of using cabs. On one occasion an
M.P. who had been at a party, hurrying down to a di-
vision, was changing his evening costume for one more
appropriate to business. Unfortunately, in the most in-
teresting part of the transaction, the cab was upset and
the M.P. was exhibited in a state which would have made
Lord Elcho very angry.

CONCERNING CABS. 191

Cab drivers I look upon as misanthropic individuals.
I fancy many of them were railway directors in the me-
morable year of speculation, and have known better days.
The driver of a buss is a prince of good fellows com-
pared with a cabman. The former has no pecuniary
anxieties to weigh him down, he is full of fun in a quiet
way, and in case of a quarrel he has his conductor to
take his side — he has his regular (employment and his
regular pay; the cabby is alone, and has to do battle
with all the world, and he has often horses to drive and
people to deal with that would tire the patience of a Job.
He is constantly being aggravated — there is no doubt
about that ; the magistrates aggravate him — the police
aggravate him — his fares aggravate him — his 'oss aggra-
vates him — the crowded state of the street, and the im-
possibility of getting along aggravates him — the weather
aggravates him — if it is hot he feels it, and has a terrible
tendency to get dry — and if it is cold and wet not even
his damp wrappers and overcoats can keep out. I sus-
pect, chilblains ; and 1 know he has corns, and he will use
bad language in a truly distressing manner. Then his
hours of work are such as to ruffle a naturally serene
temper, and when he finds it hard work to make both
ends meet, and sees how gaily young fellows spend their
money — how he drives them from one public to another,
and from one place of amusement to another — and in
what questionable society, — one can scarce wonder if
now and then cabby is a little sour, and if his language
be as rough as his thoughts. Strange tales can he tell.

192 CONCERNING CABS.

A friend of the svriter's once hired a chaise to take him
across the country ; their way led them through a turn-
pike-gate, and, to my friend's horror, the driver never
once pulled up to allow him to pay the toll. My friend
expostulated ; as the toll had to be paid, he thought the
better plan was to pay it at once. " Oh, it's all right,"
said Jehu, smiling, " they know me well enough — I am
the man wot drives the prisoners, and prisoners never
pay." Our London cabby is often similarly employed,
and, as he rushes by, we may well speculate as to the
nature and mission of his fare. Cabby so often drives
rogues that we cannot wonder if in time he becomes a
bit of a rogue himself.

193

CHAPTER XIX.

FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS.

TILL lately the London poor had no means of getting
water but the pump or the public -house. Of the latter \ve
can have but a poor opinion, nor all the former much better.
It appears that "the London pumps can never be otherwise
than dangerous sources of supply ; the porous soil from
which they suck being that into which our cesspools and
leaky drains discharge a great part of their fluid — some-
times even a great part of their solid contents, and in
which, till very recently, all our interments have taken,
place. It is a soil which consequently abounds with
putrid and putrefiable matter. The water derived from,
it invariably contains products of organic decomposition,
more or less oxidised ; and it is a mere chance, beyond
the power of water-drinkers to measure or control,
whether that oxidation shall at all times be so incomplete as
to have left the water still capable of a very dangerous?
kind of fermentation." We are further told that, "the
shallow well water receives the drainage of Highgate
Cemetery, of numerous burial grounds, and of innumer-

o

194 FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS.

able cesspools which percolate the soil on the London
side of the Cemetery, and flow towards the Metropolis.

• • • That the pump-water also becomes contaminated
with the residual liquors of manufacturing processes.

• • • That a man who habitually makes use of London
pump-water, lives in perpetual danger of disease."

But one of the greatest and most unexpected sources
of danger is, that the sense of taste or smell fails to
warn us of the danger of using such water, since
clearness, coolness, and tastelessness, may exist, without
being evidences of wholesomeness. We are also told
that " the carbonic acid of the decomposed matter makes
them sparkling, and the nitrates they contain give them
a pleasant coolness to the taste, so that nothing could be
better adapted to lure their victims to destruction than
the external qualities of these waters — hence the worst
of them are most popular for drinking purposes."

The nitrates with which these waters are charged
generally proceed from the decomposition of animal
matter, such as the corpses interred in London church-
yards ; hence the popularity of some pumps near church-
yards ; and to such an extent are some of these waters
charged with this ingredient, that J. B. C. Aldis, M.D.,
declares the water of a surface-well (though cool and
sparkling to the taste) twice exploded during the process
of incineration when he was analysing it !

Under these peculiar circumstances it does seem
strange that in London the weary, the thirsty, and
the poor have thus practically been driven to the public-

FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS. 195

house, and that they should have been left without
an alternative. A man toiling all day, bearing, it may
be, heavy burdens in the summer sun, miles it may
be from his home, parched with thirst, practically to
quench that thirst has been compelled to resort to the
beer-shop or the gin-palace. And what has been the
consequence, that the man has been led to drink more
than was good for him — that he has got into bad com-
pany— that he has wasted his time and his money,
injured his health, and possibly been led into the com-
mission of vice and crime. Every day the evil has been
demonstrated in the most striking, in the most alarming,
and in the most abundant manner. A benevolent
gentleman at Liverpool was the first to see the evil, and
to devise a remedy. He erected fountains, elegant and
attractive in character, furnished with pure water,
and in one day of about thirteen hours twenty-four
thousand seven hundred and two persons drank at
the thirteen fountains in that town. Of that twenty-
four thousand seven hundred and two persons, many
would otherwise have resorted to public-houses or gin-
palaces to quench their thirst. In smaller places,
where results are easier to ascertain, it has been found
that in reality the fountains do keep people from fre-
quenting beer-shops, and, therefore, do keep them sober.
A gentleman who largely employs workmen in ironworks
in the town of "Wednesbury, having recently erected foun-
tains for his workpeople, says that his manager has since
observed an improvement in their habits and regularity

o2

196 FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS.

of attendance, attributable to their discarded use of beer,
in consequence of the facility of obtaining pure water
which the fountains afford. The publicans in London
understand this, as it appears from the report of the
committee of the Free Drinking Association, held at
Willis's Rooms last week, when the drinking cups have
been missing they have invariably been found at some
neighbouring public-house. The movement, as we have
intimated, commenced at Liverpool; it was not long
before it reached London. According to Mr. Wakefield,
the honorary secretary of the Association, there was a
greater need for this movement in London than else-
where, owing to the fact that the greater radiation of
heat from a larger surface of buildings, less shade, more
smoke and dust, and longer street distances, combines to
make London a more thirst-exciting place than any
provincial town. Mr. Samuel Gurney, M.P., was the
first, who, in a letter published in some of the Loudon
papers, called attention to the grievous privation which
the want of these fountains inflicted on the London
poor, and subsequently by his great personal influence
and liberal pecuniary contributions, and unwearied
exertions founded the Association ; the Earl of Shaftes-
bury, the Earl of Carlisle, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and other distinguished noblemen and gentlemen rallied
around him. Loudon parishes and vestries have most
of them come forward and contributed, and already
nearly a hundred drinking fountains have been erected
by this Association. It is inferred from the Liverpool

FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS. 197

statistics that at least 400 fountains might be advan-
tageously erected in London ; these could not be
constructed and kept in repair at a less cost than
£20,000. To gain this sum the Association appeals to
the public. Last year the total receipts of the Associa-
tion amounted to £2,609; much more is required; a
very good sign, indicative of the appreciation on the
part of Londoners of the boon offered them, is found
in the fact that the poor themselves are contributing
voluntarily and in an unostentatious manner to defray
the expenses of erection. The plan of attaching money-
boxes to the fountains for the donations of friends has
been adopted, and the first money-box has been placed
at the first erected fountain on Snow Hill. So far as
the experience of four weeks justifies an opinion, it is
very encouraging, and a sum of Sd. a day has been
deposited in small coins, varying from farthings to two-
shilling pieces. The experiment is to be extended to
five other fountains, when, if successful, it is proposed
to supply every fountain with a money-box, when the
erection will be more than self-supporting. " Of all
the efforts I have been called to make," said the Earl of
Shaftesbury, " there is none that so strongly commends
itself to my feelings and my judgment as the Free
Drinking Fountain, movement/' The Earl of Carlisle
says, " Erect drinking fountains, and habits of intem-
perance will soon show a diminution,, and with a dimi-
nution of intemperance will be stopped the most prolific
of all the sources of crime and misery. Most people will

198 THEE DRINKING FOUNTAINS.

say the same, and we look upon these fountains — elegant
in character, supplied with pure water — as a grateful ac-
knowledgment by the richer classes of the interest and
sympathy they feel for those in less happy circum-
stances.

As evidence of the grateful interest elicited by this
movement in the humblest classes, let the reader take
the following letters. The first was addressed, "for
Mr. Samuel Gurney Esquire who bilt the fountains
Newgate Street,"

to Mr. Gurney esquire July 9

Kind Sir

i take liberty to giv you my best thanks
fore the butiful fountaine what you wos so kind to giv
to us poor men for Newgate Street and i would plese
ask you sir to be so kind and giv us 2 more cups extra
fore wen in Newgate street i see the squeegiug and
shovin for water for only the 2 cups of woman and little
boys is not enuff this verry hot days and God bless you '
Sir fore all your goodness what you do

from a poor man in London.

Monday June the 20th
Gentlemen of the Committee

I see by the paper of yesterday the
working Men had a large Meeting on the Fountain
question. I think under your care and good Manage-
ment the Working Women could also form and do

FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS. 199

much good. Also the Ladies could associate with the
working Classes as their Subscriptions could be distinct
from ours ; as of course our means are very limited ;
but surely we could most of us become Subscribers at
twopence per week in so noble a cause that bids fair to
drive the curse of Public Houses from our land — King's
Cross wants one much, and there is room in the open
Square also at the Portland Road at the end of Euston
Koad. They ought to be round or Square with 4 or 6
places to Drink from, with something of interest to mark
to whose honour they were raised. One Subject could
be Prince Edward suppressing the wine houses in Gibral-
tar, 1792. I think nothing could be better for the
purpose as we all feel something must be done to stop
this crying evil that is sending thousands to Death and
Madness — the other subject could be Alderman Wood
who rose from a poor Charity School Boy of Tiverton
Devonshire to plead the Duke of Kent's return to
England that his child, our present good queen, should
be born on British ground ; so we as a people have to
thank the late Sir Matthew Wood for that. I think
the wives and daughters of freemasons will give freely in
respect to the late Duke of Kent who spent I may say
thousands to raise the standard of that noble order.
• Forgive these few remarks of A Soldier
and a Mason's Daughter who has her country's interest
at heart.

J. DUNN X 103 Euston Road Euston Sq.
Gentlemen forgive the intrusion on your time also my

200 IEEE CHINKING FOUNTAINS.

bad grammar but remember I hear and see every Day
the Curse of Drink.

As evidence of the filthy nature of London water
and of the need of fountains, let the reader take the
following letter from Dr. Letheby, the City Medical
Officer, addressed to the Honorary Secretary of the
Drinking Fountain Association ; and let the reader bear
in mind that Dr. Letheby's evidence is confirmed by
that of upwards of fifty other medical gentlemen. Dr.
Letheby says, —

"From what I know of the habits of the poor
within this city, I am led to believe that the erection
of drinking fountains Avould be of especial service to
them; for although the average supply of water to the
metropolis is abundant, yet the distribution of it is so
unequal that the poorer classes do not obtain their
proper proportion ; in fact, this has become so serious
a matter in most of the courts and alleys of this city,
that I have great difficulty in dealing with it. You
are, no doubt, aware that the Avater companies have
been obliged to shorten the time of supply ever since
they have been compelled by the Act of Parliament to
furnish filtered water to the public ; and, as the pool-
have not the means of altering the present condition of
the service, and adapting it to the new arrangement,
their receptacles are never filled during the short time
that the water is on. Every contrivance is, therefore,.

FREE DRINKING FOUNTAINS. 201

used to secure as mucli water as possible while it is
flowing ; but, partly from the filthy state of the cisterns,
and partly from the foetid emanations to which the water
is exposed in the over-crowded rooms in which it is kept,
it is rarely, if ever, drinkable. The poor, then, would be
too glad to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded
by the public fountains, and would, I am quite sure,
hail them as boons of the greatest value; and when
it comes to be known that the water which floAvs from
the fountains is as pure as chemical and other contri-
vances can render it, the boon will most assuredly be
prized by all.

" At present, the public wells of this city are largely
used by all classes of persons; and, knowing what I do
of the composition of these waters, I have looked with
much concern at the probable mischief that might be
occasioned by them; for though they are generally
grateful to the palate, and deliciously cool, they are rich
in all kinds of filthy decomposing products, as the
soakage from sewers and cesspools, and the not less
repulsive matters from the over-crowded churchyards.
What, therefore, can be of greater importance to the
public than the opportunity of drinking water which
shall not only be grateful and cool, as that from the
city pumps, but which shall have none of its lurking
dangers ?

" As to the quality of the water that is now supplied
by the public companies I can speak in the fullest
confidence, for it is not merelv the most available for

202 FEEE DRINKING FOUNTAINS.

your purposes, but it is in reality the best supply that
can be obtained, I need not describe the admirable
arrangements that have been employed by the several
companies for the purification of the water, but I, may
state that there is not a city in Europe that has so large
a supply of good water as this metropolis, and I do not
know where or how you could obtain a better. I say,
therefore, without hesitation, that the water supplied by
the public companies is the best that can be used for the
fountains ; and, seeing that it will be twice filtered, and
carefully freed from every kind of impurity by the most
perfect chemical and mechanical contrivances, there need
be no hesitation on the part of the most fastidious in
freely drinking at the public fountains."

203

CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION.

ONE bright May morning in the year of our Lord, 1445,
the streets of London presented an unusually animated
appearance. Here and there were quaint devices and
rare allegories, well pleasing alike to the rude eye and
taste of citizen and peer. From dark lane and darker
alley poured forth swarms eager to behold the stranger,
who, young, high-spirited, and beautiful, had come to
wear the diadem of royalty, and to share the English throne.
The land of love and song had given her birth. Her
" gorgeous beauty," as our national dramatist describes
it, had been ripened but by fifteen summers' s suns.
Hope told a flattering tale. She discerned not the signs
that prophesied a dark and dreary future. A tempest
rudely greeted her as she landed on our shores. Sickness
preyed upon her frame. Those whose fathers's bones
were bleaching on the battle-fields of Trance murmured
that Maine and Anjou, won by so free an expenditure of
English blood and gold, should be ceded to the sire of
one who, dowerless, came to claim the throne, and, as

204 CONCLUSION.

it speedily appeared, to rule the fortunes, of HENRY
PLANTAGENET. In mercy the sad perspective of thirty
wintry years was hidden from her view. She dreamt
not of the cup of bitterness it was hers to drink — how
she should be driven from the land that then hailed her
with delight — how all that woman should abhor should
be laid to her charge — how, in her desolate chateau,
stripped of her power, and fame, and crown, lonely and
broken-hearted, she should spend the evening of her life
in unavailing sorrow and regret, till, with bloodshot eyes,
and wrinkled brow, and leprous skin, she should become
all that men shuddered to behold. But onward passed
the procession, and smiles were on her lips, and joy was
in her heart. Bright was her queenly eye, and beautiful
was her flaxen hair, so well known in romance or in the
songs of wandering troubadour. Around her were the
children of no common race, gallant and haughty, dark-
eyed Norman barons, ready to keep, as their fathers had
won, with their own good swords, power and nobility
upon British soil.

Years have come and gone. The great ones of the
earth have felt their power slip from them. Crowns and
sceptres have turned to dust. Thrones have tottered to
their fall; but there was then that evolving itself of
which succeeding ages have witnessed but the more full
development. In that procession there were symptoms
of a coming change — signs, and warning voices, that
told the noble that the power and pride of the individual
man was being torn from him — that he had been weighed

CONCLUSION. 205

in the balance and found wanting. The trading companies
— the sons of the Saxon churl — THE MIDDLE CLASSES —
for the first time appeared upon the scene, and were
deemed a fitting escort to royalty. History herself has
deigned to tell us of their show and bravery — how, on
horseback, with blue gowns and embroidered shoes, and
red hoods, they joined the nobles and prelates of our
land. Four hundred years have but seen the increase of
their wealth, of their respectability, and power. Their
struggle upwards has been long and tedious, but it has
been safe and sure. The wars of the red rose and the
white — wars which beggared the princes of England,
and spilt the blood of its nobles like water — were
favourable to the progress of the middle class. The
battle of Barnet witnessed the fall and death of the
kingmaker, and with her champion feudalism fell. The
power passed from the baron. The most thoughtless
began to perceive that a time was coming when mere
brute strength would fail its possessor. Dim and shadowy
notions of the superiority of right to might were loosened
from the bondage of the past, and set afloat; discoveries,
strange and wonderful, became the property of the many;
the fountains of knowledge, and thought, and fame were
opened, and men pressed thither, eager to win higher
honour than that obtained by the intrigues of court, or
•the accidents of birth.

With all that was bright and good did the middle
classes identify themselves. In them was the stronghold
of civilization. The prince and peer were unwilling to

206 CONCLUSION.

admit of changes in polity, in religion, or in law, which
to them could bring no good, and might possibly bring
harm. Conventional usage had stamped them with a
higher worth than that which by right belonged to them;
their adulterated gold passed as current coin ; hence it
was their interest to oppose every attempt to establish a
more natural test. The aristocracy ceased to be the
thinkers of the age. From the middle classes came the
men whose words and deeds we will not willingly let die.
Shakspere, Milton, and Cromwell shew what of genius,
and power, and divine aim, at one time the middle
classes contained.

And now, once more, is there not an upheaving of
humanity from beneath ? and over society as it is, does
not once more loom the shadow of a coming change ?
Does not middle-class civilization in its mode of utterance
and thought, betoken symptoms of decay ? Look at it
as it does the genteel thing, and sleeps an easy hour in
Episcopalian church or Dissenting chapel — as it faintly
applauds a world-renovating principle, and gracefully
bows assent to a divine idea. Ask it its problem of life,
its mission, and it knows no other than to have a good
account at the bank, and to keep a gig ; possibly, if it
be very ambitious, it may, in its heart of hearts, yearn
for a couple of flunkeys and a fashionable square. It is
very moral and very religious. Much is it attached to
morality and religion in the abstract ; but to take one
step in their behalf — to cut the shop, for their sake, for
an hour — is a thing it rarely does. Often is it too much.

CONCLUSION. 207

trouble for it to vote at a municipal election — to employ
the franchise to which it has a right — to support the
man or the paper that advocates its principles. That is,
it refuses to grapple with the great principle of ill with
which man comes into this world to make war ; and,
rather than lose a pound, or sacrifice its respectability,
or depart from the routine of formalism into which it
has grown, it will let the devil take possession of the
world.

Looked at from a right point of view, the world's
history is a series of dissolving views. We have had
the gorgeous age of nobility, the money-making one of
the middle-classes — lower still we must go. Truth lies
at the bottom of the well; the pearls, whose lustre
outshine even beauty's eye are hidden in the deep. The
men who now stamp their impress on the age — whose
thought is genuine and free — who shew the hollowuess
of shams — who demand for the common brotherhood of
man their common rights — who herald a coming age —
who are its teachers and apostles — originally laboured
in coal-mines, like Stephenson ; or mended shoes, like
Cooper ; or plied the shuttle, like Eox ; or stood, as did
Burns and Nicoll, at the plough, with GOD'S heaven
above them, and GOD'S inspiration in their hearts.

The decline and fall of England has already found
chroniclers enough. Ledru Rollin and the Protectionists
are agreed as regards the lamentable fact. G. P. Young,
the chairman of the Society for the Protection of British
Industry and Capital, believed it as firmly as his own

208 CONCLUSION.

existence. A similar opinion is more than hinted in the
tedious History of Dr. Alison. At a still earlier period
the same doleful tale was ever on the lips and pervaded
the writings of Southey, the Laureate and the renegade.
If these gentlemen are right, then the melancholy
conviction must be forced upon us that England has
seen her best days ; that it will never be with her what
it was in time past, when she bred up an indomitable
race, when her flag of triumph fluttered in every breeze,
and floated on every sea. "We must believe that England's
sun is about to set ; that, with its brightness and its
beauty, it will never more bless and irradiate the world.
Against such a conclusion we emphatically protest.
We look back upon our national career, and we see that
each age has witnessed the people's growth in political
power; that especially since that grand field-day of
Democracy, the French Revolution, that power has gone
on increasing with accelerated force ; that it was to the
increased ascendancy of that power that we owed it
that we rode in safety whilst the political ocean was
covered with wreck and ruin. If one thing be clearer
than another in our national history, it is that our
greatness and the power of the people have grown
together. At a season like the present it is well to
remember this. Prophets often fulfil their own
prophecies. The Jeremiads of the weak, or the
interested, or the fearful, may damp the courage of
some hearts ; and a people told that they are ruined,
that the poor are becoming poorer every day, that the

CONCLUSION. 209

end of all labour is the workhouse or the gaol, that
their life is but a lingering death, may come to believe
that the handwriting is upon the wall, and that it is
hopeless to war with fate.

The fact is, nations, when they die, die si felo-de-se,
The national heart becomes unsound, and the national
arm weak. The virtue has gone out of it. Its rulers
have usurped despotic powers, and the people have
been sunk in utter imbecility, or have looked upon life
as a May-day game, and nothing more. In our cold
northern clime — with the remains of that equality born
and bred amidst the beech-forests that bordered the
Baltic — the English people could never stoop to this ;
and hence our glorious destiny. No nation under
heaven's broad light has been more sorely tried than
our own. We have taken into pay almost every Euro-
pean power. Our war to restore ^the BOURBONS, and
thus to crush Liberalism at home, and keep the Tories in
office, was carried on at a cost which only English-
men could have paid ; and yet from our long seasons
of distress — from our commercial panics, the result of
fettered trade — from our formidable continental wars
— we have emerged with flying colours, and indomitable
stength. Mr. Porter's statistics showed what we had
done in the face of difficulty and danger, and the pro-
gress we have made since Mr. Porter's time is something
prodigious. Not yet has the arm of the people been
weakened or its eye dulled.

These are facts such as the united Croaker tribe can

210 CONCLUSION.

neither refute nor deny. We understand the meaning
of such men when they raise a cry of alarm. What such
men dread does in reality infuse into the constitution
fresh vigour and life. Not national death, but the
reverse is the result. The removal of one abuse, behind
which monopoly and class legislation have skulked, is
like stripping from the monarch of the forest the foul
parasite by which his beauty is hidden and his strength
devoured. From such operations the constitution comes
out with the elements of life more copious and active in
it than before. It finds a wider base in the support and
attachment of the people ; it becomes more sympathetic
with them. It grows with their growth and strengthens
with their strength.

It is not true, then, that for us the future is more
fraught with anxiety than hope. The theory is denied by
fact. It is not true commercially, nor is it true morally.
Our progress in morals and manners is, at least, equal to
our progress in trade. The coarse manners — the brutal
intoxication — the want of all faith in spiritual realities,
held not merely by the laity but by the clergy as well of
the last century, now no longer exists. Reverend Deans
do not now write to ladies as did the bitter Dean of St.
Patrick's to his Stella. Sure are we that Victoria cannot
speak of her bishops as, according to Lord Hervey,.
George II. did, and justly, speak of his. No Prime
Minister now would dare to insult the good feeling of
the nation by handing his paramour to her carriage from
the Opera in the presence of Majesty. Fielding's novels

CONCLUSION. 211

graphically display a state of things which happily now
no longer exists. The gossip of our times reveals enough
— alas! — too much — of human weakness and immorality;
but the gossip of our times is as far superior to that
which Horace Walpole lias so faithfully preserved, or to
that which Mrs. Manley in her " New Atlantis " sullied
her woman's name by retailing, or to that which Count
Grammont thought it no disgrace • to record, as light to
darkness or as dross to gold. Macaulay thus describes
the country squire of the seventeenth century: — "His chief
pleasures were commonly derived from field-sports, and
from an unrefined sensuality. His language and his
pronunciation were such as we should now only expect
to hear from ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jokes,
and scurrilous terms of abuse were uttered with the
broadest accents of his province." The country squire
of the nineteenth century is surely some improvement
upon this ; nor has the improvement been confined to
him — it has extended to all classes. We still hear
much, for instance, of drunkenness, but drunkenness
does not prevail as it did when publicans wrote on their
signs, as Smollett tells us they did, — "You may here
get drunk for one penny, dead drunk for two pence, and
clean straw for nothing."

After all, then, we lay down our pen in hope. We
have undergone struggles deep and severe, and such
struggles we may still continue to have. With a debt of
eight hundred millions like a millstone round our neck —
with a population increasing at the rate of a thousand a

p 2

212 CONCLUSION.

day — witli Ireland's ills not yet remedied — with half the
landed property of the country in the hands of the
lawyer or the Jew — with discordant colonies in all parts
of the globe — with large masses in our midst degraded
by woe and want — barbarians in the midst of civilization
— heathens in the full blaze of Christian light — no man
can deny that there are breakers ahead. Rather from
what we see around us we may conclude that we shall
have storms to weather, severe as any that have awakened
the energy and heroism of our countrymen in days gone
by. But the history of the past teaches us how those storms
will be met and overcome. Not by accident is modern
history so rich in the possession of the new creed and
the new blood, for the want of which the glory of Athens
and Corinth, and of her " who was named eternal "
passed away as a dream of the night. Not that England
may perish does that new blood course through the veins*
and that new creed fructify in the hearts of her sons.
The progress we have made is the surest indication of
the progress it is yet our destiny to make. Onward, then,
ye labourers for humanity, heralds of a coming age —
onw ard then till

sweep into a younger day.
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

Those who would deny the people their political
rights — who would teach a Christianity unworthy of its
name — who would inculcate a conventional morality —
who would degrade the national heart by perpetuating

CONCLUSION . 213

religious and political shams — they, and not the foreigner,
are our national enemies. Against them must we wage
untiring war, for the}7 are hostile to the progress of the
nation, and by that hostility sin against the progress of
the world. England will still stand foremost in the files
of time — and of that England, London will still remain
the heart and head.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY WILLIAM OSTELL, HART STREET, BLOOMSBURT.

Price Zs. 6d., bound in cloth, Second Edition, Revised.

THS UIGHT-SIDE OF LQHDOIT,

BX

JAMES EWING EITCHIE.

Contents : Seeing a Man hanged — Catherine-street — The Bal Masque
— Up the Haymarket — Ratcliffe Highway — Judge and Jury Clubs
— The Cave of Harmon)- — Discussion Clubs — Cider Cellars —
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taries— of metropolitan rectors and fashionable preachers — of statesmen
and legislators — and of that most mischievous class of men, well-meaning
philanthropists. The picture of life in London, of its manifold pitfalls of
temptation and corruption, which are here presented to the reader's eye,
is truly appalling. No one can rise from it without a deep conviction
that something must be done, ay, and that soon, if the metropolis of the
British Empire is not to become a modern Sodom and Gomorrah." —
John Bull.

" There is a matter-of-fact reality about the sketches, but they are
chiefly remarkable for the moral tone of their reflections. Generally
speaking, painters of these subjects rather throw a purple light over the
actual scenes, and say nothing of the consequences to which they lead.
Mr. llitchie is ever stripping off the mask of the mock gaiety before
him, and pointing the end to which it must finally come." — Spectator.

" We have kept Mr. Ritchie's book lying on our table, hoping that
we might find an opportunity for making it the basis of an article on the
fearful evils which it discloses. We must be satisfied, however, for the
present, with recommending all our readers who are anxious to promote
the social and moral regeneration of our great cities to read it carefully ;
and to remember, while they read, that London does not stand alone,
but that all our larger towns are cursed with abominations, such as those
which Mr. Ritchie has so vigourously and effectually described.'1 —
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" The author of ' The Night-Side of London ' has graphically
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is a fearful and shocking expose" — Illustrated Times.

Price 2s., C7< cap Edition, Revised and Enlarged,

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Contents: The Religious Denominations of London — Sketches of
the Rev. J. M. Bellew — Dale — Liddell — Maurice — Melville —
Villiers — Baldwin Brown — Binney — Dr. Campbell — Lynch —
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W. Forster— H. lerson— Cardinal Wiseman— Miall— Dr. Wolf,
&c., &c.

" THE subject is an interesting one, and it is treated with very con-
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and style borders rather too closely on coarseness; but this fault of
vigorous natures is counterbalanced by compensatory merit — by an utter
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* " One of the cleverest productions of the present day." — Morning
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Just Published, price 3s. &d., bound in cloth, post-free 3$. lOa?.

HERS AND THERE IIT LONDON,

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Contents: The House of Commons from the Stranger's Gallery —
A Night with the Lords — The Reporters' Gallery — The Lobby of
the House of Commons — Our London Correspondent — Exeter
Hall— A Sunday at the Obelisk— The Penny Gafl— The Derby—
Vauxhall— The Stock Exchange— Rag Fair— Mark Lane— The
Coal Whippers — Portland Place — An Omnibus Yard — The New
Cattle Market — The Government Office— Paternoster Row — The
London Hospital.

" WE have no doubt that his work will be extensively read, and it deserves
no less, for it is thoroughly impartial, very graphic, reliable in its details,
and extremely well written." — Illustrated News of the World.

"We recommend the book as being likely to afford a spare half-hour
of pleasant recreation," — Leader.

" Lively and attractive." — Spectator.

" Light and graceful sketces of the interior life of the great metro -
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/ 314, Strand, W.C.,
\ Nov. 1, I860.

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PREPARING FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION,
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THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON.

THIRD EDITION.

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AVJIHOK OP "ABOUT LONDON," ETC.

Mr. William Tinslcys List of New Works.

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JUST PUBLISHED; PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS,

A 13 O U T LONDON,

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Contents : — Newspaper People — Spiritualism — About Coal — Higligato
— Tom Ticller's Ground — Westminster Abbey — London Charities —
Pedeetruuusffl — Over London Bridge — The House «f Commons and
the Early Closing Movement — Town Morals — The same subject,
rontinuecl — London Matrimonial — Breach-of-Promise Cases — The
London Volunteers — Criminal London — Concerning Cabs — Free
Drinking Fountains — Conclusion.

" Mr. Ritchie ought to be a popular author, and largely read by a numerous
and highly respectable class." — Athenantm.

" They are all written with such a knowledge of each subject as might be
expected from a perceptive and accurate observer, who has gained his expe-
rience from himself, while the descriptive writing is that of a practised
hand."- — Ittuttrated London Neira.

" We can give to this work our heartiest praise. ' About London ' is
written by one whose object is us much to instruct as to amuse, and who
succeeds without any apparent effort in doing both. We say without miy
apparent effort, because Mr. Ritchie's sketches are too bold to be stiff, his
style too fluent and natural to be laboured. Notwithstanding this, ' About
London' diplays an amount of industrious research very rarely met with,
and a knowledge of men and manners which only experience — and active
experience, moreover — can supply." — Literary Gazette.

" The subjects for the most part are familiar to us, and the easy and unaf-
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subjects, such as ' The Night Side of London,' ' The London Pulpit,' ' Here
and There in London.' His volume 'About London' will, no doubt, be as
widely circulated as ita predecessors. In it he communicates a vast mass of
information in a pleasant, gossiping style. — Illustrated News of the World.

" Mr. Ritchie is well and favourably known as one of those writers who,,
whilst possessed of a keen and observant eye, remarks all the social incon-
sistencies of which human society in the great modern Babylon is composed,
and spares neither those who may be said to hold the language of the first
murderer — 'Am I my brother's, keeper?' nor others, who grovel in the sen-
suality, which speedily deforms man into little less than the beast of the
earth. In this, the last of the several books in which he has related the
doings df London life, high and low, ho does not enter so fully into the mys-
teries of the singular career of the Arabs of our streets, but touches matters

Mr. William Tinsky's List of New Works.

on a somewhat higher level with the same force and intelligence, which hi.-
has hitherto manifested, combined -with a more genial and pleasant refine-
ment, which will commend its information to those who may have been dis-
posed to be somewhat hypercritical as to the advisability of too closely
' holding the mirror up to nature,' and showing vice its own deformity anil
horror. — Bell's Weekly Messenger.

" The new book by Mr. Ritchie, entitled ' About London,' fully sustains the
reputation of the author of ' The Night Side of London.' It in, both in
mutter and manner, a most readable volume. In a series of twenty chapters
the more conspicuous and characteristic places and persons about London
are admirably sketched. The author indulges in all his modes. He ia
observant, penetrative, didactic, satirical, and reflective. Health, cheerful-
ness, and hope, however, are the pervading tones of this work. Whether the
subject be the ' Newspaper People,' ' Spiritualism,' ' London Gents,' or
' Criminal London,' he has the happy disposition of educing good and en-
nobling lessons and influence from each and all. — JVf ss.

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